What I loved about this reading the most is Kurokawa’s approach to presenting his art. His content is very cohesive and well researched in all his projects but he curates his own pieces in a way that just looking at the artwork is an experience itself. He says he does not have synesthesia himself but he creates experiences keeping the principle in mind. He focuses on the implicit interactions that occur during an experience; the eyes seeing the beat of the music, the body feeling the vibrations of the light and the ears associating visuals with the sounds. I would imagine he would be really hard to work with for curators because he has such a strong vision for how his artwork is meant to be shown. But at the same time, I love his intentionality and direction. I really admire how he’s able to take the chaotic-ness of nature and our environment, and express it in its full abrasive glory while using simple interactions to immerse the audience in his world.
Sitting as an audience in the 3D in Ink. I was shocked at how particles of the liquid drops gather and disperse into flashing vapor until it gathers back to form the calligraphy characters standing in solid shape. Gather, disperse and formulate different routes of writing and shapes.
The writer says that like the two hangers of coats left in his studio, “Kurokawa organizes his work according to two conceptual hangers: his most widely synaesthesia and the deconstruction of nature”. Different from how writers mix different senses as an expression, I’m really intrigued about how Kurokawa “sync” the visuals and audio together to create a satisfaction of matching and perfection of synchronization and yet going beyond patterns and comfort of being organized. In his “Octfall”, I feel fulfilled seeing when with a base drum beat and a glitch the visual switches from one screen to another, zooming in its size. There’s a sense of “oh wow” feeling running through my body as I see how the visual change and the audio change synchronize in a way that we don’t initially recognize.
Kurokawa’s notion on “Deconstruction of nature” is like a disorientational feeling generated through the visual’s change and the defamiliarization of naturalistic objects, or concepts we touch in our everyday life. He leaves time of suspension, repetition and sudden shifts of the pace; it’s like the objects and the elements depicted in his pieces go through a transformation as the audio triggers the changes. I don’t really know how he builds up these changes, but just watching it, not even in real life, gives me an awing feeling. It feels like he’s tearing nature apart by distorting it a little, as he proceeds with a little twist one by one, it explodes into a different word.
The precision involved in using tech to create art is so high. Having different software systems for trial, carrying cables through water vessels, I’m just envisioning the hardship of the installation with such a sophisticated art piece. It must be such a cool yet stressful job to handle these installations.
The constant contrast between the development process of Kurokawa’s work to the work itself is an interesting look into the extent to which this work can be transformative. An isolated intimate space produces work that is farthest thing from isolated, works that stand in concert halls and museums for the masses. Work that is derived from nature, an unpredictable disordered scene, that turns into an organized orchestrated performance. These changes make me think of the different ways I can derive from my source of inspiration and surroundings, you can take it and recreate it or transform into to a work of complete contrast. An earlier reading talked about the importance of keeping live coding a field without a definition as to not constraint or try to dictate what it’s limits and possibilities are. The work described in this text further proved me the importance of such a choice. The tools Kurokawa used to create his work are varied from custom software and 3D modelling platforms to capturing nature itself such as his approach to Octfalls. There are endless possibilities to what you can use to create such installations and in turn there are endless possibilities to what messages you can send out or what emotions you can evoke through your work.
Looking into the process of creating and the space where an artist creates is also interesting and insightful. Another part of the reading that particularly stood out to me is when the writer was talking about the space is when they pointed out that the various softwares and set-ups used in the office to test out the works are a “nod to the technical variables at stake in each live performance-to the fact that things can go and have gone wrong in the past.” That realization that things even in the case of an established artist have gone wrong when dealing with technological performances is a really comforting fact that even at a higher level it takes time to perfect and build up your vision. The various set-ups are also a reminder of the importance of testing and understanding the possibilities that come with different technologies. And this careful testing across different laptops are also quiet complimentary to Kurokawa to create order out of disorder, where he takes the unpredictability of what might go wrong and orders it. This line felt like it was both a comfort to the possibilities of error and a reminder to the importance of testing and experimenting.
I think what I felt most while reading this was a quiet sense of awe. The description of Kurokawa’s Berlin studio immediately pulled me in. Black felt carpet, no internet and a doorbell that doesn’t work. It felt like reading about someone who has built a world specifically designed for focus. I could almost feel the muffled silence of that space.
I was especially struck by how patiently he works. He said, “Nature doesn’t change overnight; it evolves gradually over time. I like this approach and try to do the same.” Reading that, I felt a deep admiration for his dedication. In a world that pushes for speed and constant output, here is someone who lets projects take five years if they need to. He doesn’t chase new technology or cling to old media. He just stays inside his process.
The image of him standing alone on that taped X on the floor, the sweet spot where he tests everything, stayed with me. It felt like a portrait of someone completely surrendered to their craft. I think that’s what moved me most. Not the awards or the prestigious venues, but the sense that he has arranged his entire life around his work itself.
I found it most interesting about his work flow that he doesn’t stick to one singular program or hardware. He doesn’t tie himself down to a particular workflow, but instead just tries whatever he enjoys. This idea I thought was very unusual since artists typically choose a software and get familiar with it but may often run into the risk of the technology being left behind. With his approach, he is always able to create no matter what is provided. Another interesting part was that he considers his work as “time design”. His work for syn_ allows for lengthening or shortening all depending on what is allowed for him, which is not something that is typically done for visual/ audio works. Another concept that really stuck with me is his process of “denaturing” where he isn’t trying to replicate things from the real world, but instead trying to break things down into data and attempting to reconstruct it in a way that reveals the underlying structures.
The idea that synaesthesia and deconstruction of nature are the two main things that Kurokawa bases his work around made me think of what we are doing for this class through another lens. We also organize our work around the concept of synaesthesia, while we might not clinically have it, in the end, we are making sound and visuals that we find associate with each other somehow. The reading also mentions how “nothing is solid in Kurokawa’s universe” and how the instability of his visual compositions sets him apart. I’m not sure if this is what they meant, but the way I understood it is that your work doesn’t always have to be ‘clean’ or ‘aesthetic’ to send the message you want across within your composition. The reading also mentions the Japanese concept of ‘wabi-sabi’, in which pleasure is found through imperfections, and while that does resonate with Kurokawa’s work, it also resonates with what we have been told throughout the class, to do what feels good to us, and that what might sound good to me might not sound good to another person.
What stood out to me most in this reading on Ryoichi Kurokawa is how seriously it takes the idea of scale, not just in a visual sense but in how we experience and process it as viewers. The text moves between the cosmic and the microscopic, from distant stars to butterfly wings, and what feels important is that this movement is not meant to be symbolic or poetic. It is structural. Kurokawa’s work is not really about representing nature as we know it, but about breaking it apart, abstracting it, and rebuilding it through sound and image until it feels unfamiliar, intense, and slightly disorienting.
I was especially drawn to the way the reading describes his process and studio environment. Everything feels extremely controlled, technical, and precise, yet the outcomes are often chaotic, dense, and overwhelming. That contrast feels very intentional. Natural phenomena are described as being “de-natured” and translated into data, rhythms, and visual noise, which really stood out to me. Rather than suggesting that technology gives us clearer access to nature, Kurokawa seems to argue the opposite. Our experience of the natural world is always filtered through systems, tools, and mediation, and his work makes that fragmentation visible instead of hiding it.
The idea that his works are never fixed also stayed with me. His performances and installations change depending on the space, scale, and context in which they are presented, which makes the work feel alive rather than finished. It challenges the idea of art as a stable object and instead treats it as a system that keeps shifting and evolving over time. I found that approach refreshing, especially when compared to more traditional forms that prioritize permanence and a single, final version of the work.
What ultimately stays with me is how little his work seems to care about comfort. Even when the visuals are beautiful, there is a constant sense of tension and pressure, especially through sound. The experience feels physical, almost confrontational at times, as if it is pushing against the limits of what the body and senses can handle. Rather than explaining the world or making it feel more legible, Kurokawa’s work disrupts it, pushing perception until it starts to feel fragile. That discomfort feels intentional and honest, and it is what makes the work linger long after the experience ends.