Yoichi Ochiai
Main activity
As a Media Artist
He has been working as a media artist since around 2010. As a media artist, he holds several solo and group exhibitions a year, as well as international communication of Japanese culture.
With the artist statement, "Mononizing Computer: Confronting Nature and Ruminating on Longing and Emotion between Mass and Image," Ochiai's activities range from research to social implementation, and are not limited to electronic technology expression. Ochiai states, "The vernacular, folk art, and local production for local consumption process of bringing something from the 'natural' environment to create a work of art has not changed since ancient times, whether it is Japanese or Western-style painting," and considers media art as "vernacular folk art of computer nature.
As a researcher
He has been engaged in research with a vision of computational nature, and has been leading his own "Digital Nature Laboratory" at the University of Tsukuba since 2015, as well as serving as the director of the "Digital Nature Development Research Center" since 2020. He specializes in media arts as well as "human-computer interaction" and applied fields using "intelligent technology" and "haptic technology. Ochiai says that he aims to create a new "vision of nature," which he calls "Digital Nature," through academic research activities, exploration of media art expression, and various social implementations. His research papers have been published in the fields of human-computer interaction, virtual reality, aerial displays, spatial graphics, collaboration and co-creation between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, accessibility, and diversity. As a researcher, he has received the World Technology Award and the Laval Virtual Award from Laval Virtual, the largest VR festival in Europe, five times in four consecutive years. In education, he teaches courses on media arts, media technology, and content expression at both undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of Tsukuba. In addition to Tsukuba University, he has taught at Osaka University of Arts, Kanazawa College of Art, Kyoto City University of Arts, and Digital Hollywood University.
Digital Nature
Digital Nature is a new natural environment reconstructed through the affinity between computer and non-computer resources, and is a new vision of nature proposed by Yoichi Ochiai as "a new nature where people, things, nature, computers, and data are connected and de-structured. Ochiai states that the speed of evolution of digital nature continues to accelerate day by day, and that we must constantly renew our relationship with the new nature that is continually changing through digital means. The permanent exhibition "Computers and Nature, Nature of Computers" at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, which Ochiai served as art director and exhibition supervisor, includes the following statement: "The world is now full of computers created by us, and the resolution and processing power of the world they create is exceeding the limits of our human perception and intelligence. In the near future, we will be able to use the original nature of computers. In the near future, the difference between the original nature and the nature created by the computer world will diminish, and a "new nature" will emerge for us in the future, in which we will not even be aware of the difference. Imagining a big nature in which nature inside and outside the computer are integrated into one, let's think about how our view of nature and the world will change and what kind of "questions" we will discover at that time.
Digital Nature Development Research Center
As of June 1, 2020, the Digital Nature Development Research Center was established at the University of Tsukuba. This research center aims to integrate computing and nature. In the release regarding the establishment of the center, it is stated that "The center will study the co-creation environment of information media devices and people in such a feedback loop, and promote a series of research related to "digital nature," thereby deepening research on elemental technologies for social implementation and utilizing them through interdisciplinary collaboration with culture, art, and sports. Through interdisciplinary collaboration with culture, art, and sports, we will conduct research and development of media devices and services that utilize them.
xDiversity
He is a research representative of xDiversity (cross-diversity)[1], JST CREST "Social Implementation of Spatial Audiovisual and Tactile Technologies Based on Super AI Infrastructure for a Computationally Diverse Society," and is involved in a project as a general incorporated association, xDiversity, to realize a diverse society that encompasses the differences in human physical abilities. He is also involved in projects to realize a diverse society that embraces the differences in human physical abilities. He aims to adapt machine learning technology to various types of physical diversity, such as automated wheelchair driving, diversity-enabling entertainment (music concerts without listening by ear), and a project for walking with prosthetic legs (Otome prosthetic leg project).
Pixie Dust Technologies, Inc.
Founded Pixie Dust Technologies, Inc. for the purpose of digital transformation of space and social implementation of university-originated technologies. Through research and development of human interface technology and computer simulation technology, the company implements technologies such as tactile speaker technology, metamaterial technology, digital transformation of construction sites, and BCP solutions for corona countermeasures.
EXHIBITION
- Nakedness and Materiality
- Yoichi OCHIAI Ubiquitous Existence of Bodies, Interwoven Time and Space
- Returning to the Ring, Carbon, Digital, Ideological and Narrative Forms -