Category: Spring 26

I really enjoyed reading about Kurokawa’s approach to his creative works. What he said about nature especially stood out to me. He explained that nature is disorder, and he likes to use it to create order and show another side of it. In simple terms, he likes to “de-nature” a subject to reveal the patterns and structures within it. This is a great way to think about generative art. From my own experience, I often start with noise or randomness and then use functions to shape it into something appealing or familiar. Reading this makes me realize that live coding shouldn’t just be about showing off a cool new visual, a sound, or a fast algorithm. It should be about evolution. If I want my compositions to stand out, they should feel like they are growing in front of the audience. Anything that feels natural stands out to us because we recognize those same patterns within ourselves. I also believe in maintaining a “sweet spot” of balance between abrupt changes and consistent patterns.

Kurokawa’s lack of bias and his openness to exploring new tools, whether they are legacy software or brand-new technology, is the exact spirit that allows for true artistic exploration. He avoids sticking to just one tool or software, which usually limits what we can create. By setting aside these biases, Kurokawa leads the way in bringing complex ideas to reality in their best possible form.

Humans have a natural instinct for macro and micro scales. See Rumi: “That I might behold an ocean in a drop of the water, a sun enclosed in a mote.” Kurokawa throws up the same prayer with his work. I started thinking about how the tools we use shape our conceptualizations of the nature of reality, how we cannot extricate the soul from the body (loosely related to synesthesia). Our visceral understanding of the configurations of nature became more quantitative – “Powers of Ten.” The presence of modern technology and scientific thought is strong. Rather than see man in God’s image, Eames noticed the planet as seen from a US-Russia-Space Race spaceship in a microscopic 1920s lab-possible cell. Despite the contextual distance, the spiritual epiphany is the same, and this is interesting to me.

Kurokawa’s disregard for the tools he uses was also interesting. Like in Powers of Ten, how we understand and what we create is shaped by the tools we use. I wanted to know more about what Kurokawa thinks about this relationship, the inherently mutually-constraining dynamic between his tools and what he creates. I get not being into tech-nostalgia (nostalgia has always seemed too navel-gazey for me). I don’t like my books because of the way they smell. I’ll read a pdf too. Just wanted to know more about this.

Even if he doesn’t care about the technology itself, and more about what kind of soul these devices can process and display, boy does he keep up just as fast as technology moves, huh? I was really interested in his setup. The iMac, the speakers, the mixing board, whatever the hell a “subwoofer” is, and the “X” where he can stand and scrutinize the total composition the way an audience in a theater will. I liked the idea of needing to move up close and back up, again and again. I really liked this “X.”

I also liked using “NASA topographic data to generate a video rendering of the Earth’s surface.” Just shows how many resources are at your disposal, if you can think of them. I also like how the reading mentions the sublime. I always thought of nature as an intelligent, subversive force. I also noted how Kurokawa uses a sketchbook to communicate ideas. It’s not all done on computers, but a lot of performance conceptualizations begin by being drawn by hand.

I also liked reading about the actual logistics that live performances take, like figuring out how to record a waterfall, or get your hands on dried insects, or balance 200 meters of cable in a historically old and valuable roof. Producing the live performance seems just as much as a live performance itself. I also never thought of films as pieces of audiovisual work, which they definitely are.

And mostly I feel like this reading was about tapping into something, and a brief insight into how Kurokawa taps in. What he taps into. Want to end on another Rumi quote I found while browsing for the first one: “Dost thou know why the mirror (of thy soul) reflects nothing? Because the rust is not cleared from its face.”

Rumi

What I find most interesting is Kurokawa’s statement, “Nature is disorder. I like to use nature to create order… I like to denature.” I have always thought of nature as a form of order — ecosystems functioning in balance, patterns repeating, and life sustaining itself without human interference. In contrast, I tend to see human beings as the source of disruption and chaos. That is why his perspective feels so unexpected to me. By describing nature as disorder, he shifts the responsibility of structure and organization onto the artist. It suggests that order does not simply exist waiting to be admired; it can be constructed through interpretation and design

I was fascinated by his focus on synesthesia and the deconstruction of nature. He takes the natural randomness of our environment, such as the chaotic motion of microscopic particles, and translates it into highly controlled, digital audiovisual experiences. By acting as a “time designer,” Kurokawa ensures his pieces never just dissolve into a mess of noise. Instead, he carefully layers real-world field recordings with computer-generated graphics so that what you hear and what you see feels like a single, connected unit. This approach shows how we can use digital tools to completely rebuild our perception of the natural world.

Kurokawa’s style offers a great lesson on the importance of flow and artistic intention. When coding generative art, it is very easy for an algorithmic composition to lose its structure and overwhelm the audience. However, Kurokawa proves that by carefully guiding the transitions between order and disorder, an artist can successfully harness that chaos. His work is a powerful reminder that mastering the audio-visual flow is what transforms raw data and abstract code into a truly engaging and meaningful performance.

Kurokawa’s perspective on nature is grounded in a deep patience that I find interesting. He mentioned that nature doesn’t change overnight but evolves gradually, and he applies that same logic to his own work. He isn’t interested in the frantic race to keep up with every new tech development. Instead, he focuses on what he calls his “incremental evolution.” It makes his process feel much more intentional, like he is growing his art the same way a forest grows, rather than just chasing the next big update.

The author also mentioned Kurokawa’s two conceptual hangers, which are synaesthesia and the deconstruction of nature. Seeing his ATOM performance on YouTube really made those ideas click for me. It was not just a show. It felt like watching nature get dismantled and put back together in real time. The way the visuals fractured and then snapped back together in milliseconds felt exactly like the time design the writer described. It reinforced that idea of absolute instability, showing that nothing is actually solid and everything we see is just fragments in flux.

What I took away most was his wabi-sabi vibe. In a world where everyone is obsessed with the latest AI or new gadgets, he is just chilling and totally indifferent to the tools. He cares about the evolution of the work rather than the specs of the computer. It makes his cataclysmic walls of noise feel a lot more human. He is just a guy trying to find a bit of order in the chaos of the universe. He moves between the microscopic and the cosmic without ever losing his footing.

Reading about Ryoichi Kurokawa made me think differently about how scale and control work in audiovisual art. What stood out to me most was his idea of “de-naturing” nature, to uncover structures that are usually invisible. He breaks natural phenomena down into data, sound and image to create works that feel both precise and unstable at the same time, which makes the experience feel alive rather than fixed.

I was also drawn to how Kurokawa thinks about time. He sees his work as “time design” and he justify by constantly adjusting and reshaping it across performances and installations. His slow and evolving approach contrasts how quickly technology usually moves – he doesn’t seem interested in novelty for its own sake, but in letting ideas develop gradually, the way nature does.

Another aspect I found compelling is that Kurokawa doesn’t confine himself to a single platform or format. He moves fluidly between concerts, installations, sculptures and data-driven visuals, choosing the medium based on what the idea requires rather than forcing the work into one system. This flexibility reinforces his larger interest in scale and transformation, and it made me reflect on how artistic practice doesn’t have to be tied to one tool or discipline to remain coherent.