Artist Exploration: Yugo Nakamura

Yugo Nakamura

"it's about making something more natural to the computer's environment. it's about adapting to a world of calculations running on a massive scale."

Yugo Nakamura does interesting things with interface. He uses Flash to build compelling sites that are fun for what they are, not for the information they give you.

I like his work because he's better than most at pulling you into a site, exploiting the powers of the computer to make the computer invisible. He uses data from user input (I'm guessing here) and feeds it into algorithms within Flash that then build moving works of art.

• Elastic Body
• Line x 50
• Black Ribbon
• Mona Lisa

Nakamura was inspired by the work of John Maeda. In the late 1990s Maeda (now an Associate Director at MIT's Media Lab) looked at the computer as an artistic medium in itself, and experimented with the interface between a work and the person looking at it.

• Frolicking Cursor
• Calendar

Though trained as a structural engineer, Nakamura took this idea of interactivity and began a new career as a web designer. He now works with Business Architects Inc. [bA] on interface design. Clients of [bA] include Fuji, Macromedia, Panasonic, Sony, and Vivienne Westwood Japan.

• Subaru Forester
• Expo 2005

Nakamura also has his own site that he sees as his "personal laboratory" for trying out and developing new ideas.

• Elastic Body and Kiriya
• Black Ribbon and Year of the Snake
• Modulator
• Line x 50 and Oval x 3
• Blinking Eye
• Mona Lisa and Gasbook 10
• Clock

And occasionally he builds sites that have a practical bent.

• Fotologue
• Gallery

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Interviews with Nakamura here and here.