Interview about Life Forms of Colors Digital Art, winner of the A' Generative, Algorithmic, Parametric and AI-Assisted Design Award 2025
This work is an animation that visually depicts the process of pixels being broken down and reconstructed. The idea for the work began when the artist, a printmaker, wanted to create a landscape print and wondered if he could achieve color separation through coding. The pixels appear like cells, moving to form new shapes and colors, embodying the Japanese concepts of Kasane (layering) and Zurashi (shifting). They also symbolize the various transformations a person can undergo, expressing diversity and fluidity throughout the work, and reflecting the intersection of tradition and technology.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsFor me, traditional woodblock printing has never been just a technique, but a way of seeing and thinking about the world.In this project, I reinterpreted the process of printmaking through code, breaking down the visual element of color into pixels and reconstructing it into new forms.Working with code allowed me to approach color in a more structural and systematic way. What had previously existed only as a conceptual or intuitive idea became something tangible through the act of computation and execution.
Through the process of coding, I came to feel that nature and technology are not fundamentally opposed, but are deeply connected at their core. Pixels, while being the smallest units of digital technology, can behave like living cells or organisms. As I depicted the way these pixels gather, move, and transform, I began to see overlaps with human relationships in life — families, schools, workplaces, even nations. It seemed to quietly suggest that all things in the world, regardless of scale, share common structures and rhythms.The relationship between nature and technology is not a simple dichotomy of control and submission, or artificial and natural, but rather something more like co-evolution. I believe we always live on the shifting boundary between the two.In this work, I aimed to express that ambiguity and layering through the movement of pixels and the changes in their structure.
In traditional woodblock printing, the concept of Kasane—the layering of colors one by one through repeated printing—allows for the emergence of unexpected textures and subtle traces of the human hand. Over time, these individual layers merge to form a single image that can no longer be separated into its components. I sought to reimagine this idea of Kasane in a three-dimensional digital space, believing that by maintaining its core structure while changing the medium, a new form of painterly expression could emerge.The principle of Zurashi, or intentional shifting, is expressed not through static misalignment but through subtle changes in time and space—variations in animation timing, or slight shifts in angle and viewpoint within a digital environment. These small displacements create rhythm, fluctuation, and a quiet sense of life.By translating Kasane and Zurashi into the languages of space, time, and code, I explore a mode of expression that connects my printmaking sensibility with my technical curiosity, while also reflecting the fluid ambiguity at the heart of Japanese aesthetics.
The video created from a single photograph lasts only about one minute and thirty seconds, but producing such a continuously and complexly changing animation within a single coding sketch was technically very challenging. This was the main reason why I divided the video into multiple scenes. At that time, I imagined a structure following the traditional four-part narrative of introduction, development, twist, and conclusion, dividing it into four sections symbolizing the flow of life. However, this division brought many challenges both technically and artistically.On the technical side, I paid close attention to ensuring that transitions between scenes would not feel disconnected, carefully adjusting background colors, movement speeds, and noise textures to create a natural continuity. Artistically, I composed the work so that each scene would have a distinct impression while still forming a unified overall structure. Through visual rhythm, the use of negative space, and the layering of colors, I consciously balanced the ambiguous boundary between order and chaos, aiming for each scene to connect organically and form a single flow.Through these challenges, I aimed not simply to place four scenes side by side but to realize a composition that symbolizes a human life, with a single living entity continuously transforming over time.
Printmaking has taught me a way of seeing the world itself. More than any book or experience, it made me reflect on the essence of the world.The printing block and the printed work exist as the same yet different; they are reversed and can be seen as opposing mirrors. This structure, where opposing things arise from one block, reflects the concept of relativity and counterpoints in the world. Also, the fact that multiple prints come from a single block reminds me of cell division, evoking the growth of life. In color separation, different perspectives are integrated and layered to form a single unified world. Printing itself is an act of layering traces of change. As the same block is printed repeatedly, subtle shifts and blurs appear, creating expressions that are similar yet different. This accumulation of repetition and difference resonates with life’s evolution and adaptation to the environment.This mindset rooted in printmaking expanded into new forms of expression through its encounter with coding. Without the experience and thought from printmaking, this work would not have been realized.
Through the act of reconstructing printmaking with code, I came to realize once again that analog and digital are not simply different techniques, but both share the same essence of expression — the way we structure and record the world.To me, code is like a new woodblock, and pixels are like new particles of ink.More importantly, I discovered that the act of writing code, much like carving by hand, becomes a new space for expression where sensation and logic intersect. Within that process, I found myself rediscovering the beauty of chance and subtle deviations, even within the digital realm.
The scale of the four meter by four meter LED screen creates an experience that goes beyond simply watching an image; it allows viewers to immerse themselves within the video. Being aware of this immersion significantly influenced how I designed the movement of pixels and the transitions of color.Fine movements that might be overlooked on a normal screen are enlarged on a large display and become something the viewer can physically feel. Therefore, I gave the pixel movements a certain sense of timing and breathing, aiming for them to resonate with the viewer’s bodily rhythm.The color changes were also designed to avoid sudden shifts, instead using smooth transitions that layer over one another, so that color emerges not only visually but as a spatial sensation.
Being recognized at an international platform such as the A’ Design Award was a great encouragement. What made me especially happy was that the work was appreciated not simply as a result of digital technology, but for expressing the physicality and cultural roots of traditional printmaking through the medium of code.I believe generative art is a rare form of expression that connects diverse elements and concepts. Although it is digital, it has the potential to express the very structure of the world itself.For me, generative art is not a technology to let go of our senses, but rather a technology to expand them. In that sense, I believe this work presents a new form of expression that engages in dialogue with digital technology while remaining rooted in traditional thinking.
The idea that we live within change, and that change itself is essential, is something I have come to believe through personal experience. People have the freedom to change again and again, and we live within that ongoing transformation. This is not simply about passing transitions, but rather a process of reformation, where something ends and a new shape emerges. Deconstruction and regeneration are always interconnected, and that is precisely why I was able to move naturally from traditional woodblock printing into the realm of coding.In this work, I expressed the way pixels slowly form shapes and then dissolve, transitioning cyclically into new orders. This structure is not a simple loop, but a continuous transformation — a circle that returns after change. In the programming process, I aimed for a structure that does not rely on randomness or linear change, but instead allows shapes to unravel over time and be woven again. I believe this created movements that carry the rhythm and breath of life.The feeling that every ending is also a beginning resonates with both nature and the human condition. Through this work, I wanted to visually convey that change is not about loss, but about hope.
What I am working on represents only one aspect of digital art, but I feel that when each person explores their own unique values and perspectives, it contributes to the richness of the entire world of expression.Expressing the tactile sensations and subtle fluctuations that exist between tradition and technology through code was simply something I wanted to do myself, and it was not intended as an effort to advance digital art expression. However, I hope that such efforts will contribute to broadening our understanding of the world.
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