Art in Reality, Cyberspace and Virtual Space

Name: Toh Lai Hee

Class: IA05A (Interactive)

Lecturer: Mumtaz Maricar

Subject: Space and Spectacle

Macoto Yanagisawa is a very talented and gifted interactive multimedia artist. You could easily distinguish his works by his strong passion in motion, neon light and sound. His love in experimenting with visual effects is also one of his forte. Another common characteristic of his works is the use of Macromedia Director. His utilization of the 3D engine of Director is superb. You could find impressive visuals in most of his interactive pieces (from year 2000 onwards). He called this series of works as "Interactive Motion Art".

'Neon' version 1 is one of his earlier works which derives from the series of Neon Light Illusion (his first experimental piece). The pan and pitch of the sound changes with the movement of the mouse cursor. The colour of the neon light also changes the pitch/tone of the sound while your cursor moves around.

This image was selected as a picture of the week o...

Screen grab of The Thing (Net Art Project)

Live Without a Net. Art by John Picacio.

Personally, I think the visuals are very impressive. The colours blended in so well with each other.

Another work which I believe was the upgrade or improvement from 'Neon' is 'Alveolata Noctiluca Neonlight', which was done in 2001. There are 24 types of style. Each style is represented by a Chinese word. So there are 24 Chinese words of course. The style is determined by the meaning of the Chinese word that appears on your screen. Whenever you right click your mouse, the style changed. Every style has their unique way of generating sound/audio. For example the Chinese word 'Fang Yin', this actually means 'Reaction' in English. The Chinese word 'Fang Yin' itself already speaks for its nature and style. You will see a neon light band (looks like rubber band) which changes colour as the particles rotate and a white circle band (again,