Artist website of Norimichi Hirakawa featuring exhibitions, works, and newshttps://norimichihirakawa.com/en-ushttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/16-unknowns-and-the-irreversible/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/16-unknowns-and-the-irreversible/Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/ieie_lofoten/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/ieie_lofoten/Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/a-circular-piece/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/a-circular-piece/Norimichi Hirakawa transforms nature into numerical data through his unique programming practice, reconfiguring it into new forms of sensory experience to awaken alternative perceptions. Insects orbit light. The sun rises and sets. Stars revolve. “a circular piece (of the spacetime)” (2024) traces circular and spherical motions extracted from the environment—from the microscopic paths of tiny insects to the cosmic orbits of celestial bodies—drawing rings through spacetime. At times, spheres appear that exist only within mathematical models of four-dimensional space, evoking a sense of encountering the fundamental laws of the universe that govern not only human life but all living beings. This work, situated amid the asphalt-covered, commodified, and advertisement-filled clamor of the city, reminds us that what we see and hear is not the entirety of the world. From a vast, macroscopic perspective that transcends human perception, it invites us to contemplate the simple yet profound reality of being here, now, in this boundless spacetime. Yoko Nose (Curator)Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/a-plaything-for-the-great-observers-at-rest/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/a-plaything-for-the-great-observers-at-rest/Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/a-study-for-spacecolortime/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/a-study-for-spacecolortime/Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/bpbl/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/bpbl/By inserting a computer into the video feedback loop, the machine itself is made to “see the act of seeing”—that is, it presents a condition akin to a self-propelled Eye-Tracking Informatics (ETI) (Seiko Mikami, 2011), operating without a human experiencer. This work is conceived with reference to ETI by Seiko Mikami—programmed by Hirakawa—and to a group work exhibited in 2003, when Hirakawa was a student at Tama Art University, in the Media Art Laboratory workshop “Space–Body: Process and Loop” at the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC).Tue, 11 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/cloud-chamber/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/cloud-chamber/This textile is a record of the velocity and acceleration of a group of particles moving on the number line (in one-dimensional space) according to a universal gravitational force described by a computer program. The behavior of a group of particles following a program resembles certain natural phenomena. As given a certain number of water molecules and various physical conditions such as temperature and atmospheric pressure, fog, waterfalls, and glaciers appear,The behavior of the smallest unit of virtual particles and environmental variables are defined, and as the operation continues, a dynamic mathematical pattern is created. .On the other hand, Nishijin brocade is not only a textile, but also a static aesthetic pattern that is a mixture of strict restrictions to withstand practical use and the unique aesthetic qualities of Nishijin that have been refined over its long history. I wanted to see a textile that would stand up beautifully as a real phenomenon/cloth when the bit sequence, which continues on a computer memory with no room for design, intersects with the aesthetics of Nishijin brocade.Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/datum_atacama/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/datum_atacama/The secod version of "datum" with the photographs taken in the Atacama Desert region including ALMA telescope.Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/datum_sapporo/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/datum_sapporo/The first work in a series that emerged through an artist residency conducted from 2015 to 2016 at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo. Based on images taken in Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, known as the final work of Isamu Noguchi, the piece was exhibited in the park’s snow storage facility. If one regards the six pieces of information held by each pixel of a video dataset—space (x, y), time (t), and color (RGB)—as spatial coordinates, then all the pixels of that video can be represented as a point cloud in six-dimensional space. By rotating them within this six-dimensional space, previously unseen images hidden within the original video data emerge, without disrupting the relationships (distances) between the original pixels. This is also an inhuman worldview that arises by treating the different concepts of space, color, and time symmetrically within the same space. The work was inspired by how researchers of superstring theory, which deals with spaces of ten or more dimensions, can readily reconfigure their theories by altering the number of spatial dimensions.Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/datum_sunset/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/datum_sunset/The first work in a series that emerged through an artist residency conducted from 2015 to 2016 at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo. Based on images taken in Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, known as the final work of Isamu Noguchi, the piece was exhibited in the park’s snow storage facility. If one regards the six pieces of information held by each pixel of a video dataset—space (x, y), time (t), and color (RGB)—as spatial coordinates, then all the pixels of that video can be represented as a point cloud in six-dimensional space. By rotating them within this six-dimensional space, previously unseen images hidden within the original video data emerge, without disrupting the relationships (distances) between the original pixels. This is also an inhuman worldview that arises by treating the different concepts of space, color, and time symmetrically within the same space. The work was inspired by how researchers of superstring theory, which deals with spaces of ten or more dimensions, can readily reconfigure their theories by altering the number of spatial dimensions.Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/habitable-zone-TRAPPIST-1/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/habitable-zone-TRAPPIST-1/TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star about 40 light years from Earth in the direction of Aquarius. Three of the seven surrounding terrestrial planets are in a habitable zone, not only suggests the possibility of extraterrestrial life, but also the potential for human existence. This makes them a promising subject for research into human settlement. I took a 360° panoramic photograph with an omnidirectional camera. The photo, centered on TRAPPIST-1 and converted into monochrome, was developed using the azimuthal equidistant projection, which is used for maps showing the routes of aircraft and ships. When viewed as a photograph, the viewer’s gaze overlaps with that of the future of humanity. When viewed as an azimuthal map projection centered on the current location, the viewer’s gaze toward earth overlaps with that of unknown life (the humanity of the future) born under a dark, red star. Subjectivity and objectivity, space and time are inverted by the difference in the characteristics of two different visual media - photographs and maps.Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/the-indivisible/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/the-indivisible/Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/the-irreversible/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/the-irreversible/A time-evolving virtual system is observed while being rewound. By design, this system deliberately violates the law of energy conservation and therefore cannot be a model of the universe in which we exist. Yet it evokes various entities found in this universe—such as the cosmos, atomic nuclei, elementary particles, cells and neurons. Particles that were connected in the initial state are torn apart and move while continuously altering their relationships, making the system as a whole irreversible. However, within the medium of moving images, this reversal becomes possible. Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/knowns/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/knowns/Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/vwbl/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/vwbl/Fri, 03 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-beijing/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-beijing/Digital images of a stone collectred in Beijing were converted into alphabet sequences by dividing the brightness value of each pixel by 26 and replacing the numerical remainder with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. I then wrote a program to generate English sentences by looking up each alphabet sequence in a dictionary and listing existing words. The English sentences generated may be meaningful. However, they are only significant to humans, not to the wild birds perched on the driftwood or the ground spiders that lived there.Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-iwami/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-iwami/Digital images of driftwood collected at Mochiishi Beach near the museum were converted into alphabet sequences by dividing the brightness value of each pixel by 26 and replacing the numerical remainder with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. I then wrote a program to generate English sentences by looking up each alphabet sequence in a dictionary and listing existing words. The English sentences generated may be meaningful. However, they are only significant to humans, not to the wild birds perched on the driftwood or the ground spiders that lived there.Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-rhine/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-rhine/A photograph of a piece of driftwood, collected in the city where the exhibition takes place, has its image data processed by a computer program that converts its pixels into letters. Based on this pixel-to-letter transformation, the program searches a dictionary for matching words and then displays the resulting words on a monitor. The words extracted through the countless simulations after the natural object is connected to a human-created computer system emerge as mere coincidences. Yet, the work raises questions about whether the world is governed by randomness or inevitability, while simultaneously revealing a horizon of no meaning beyond the human tendency to understand the world through meaning. (Yoko Nose, Curator)Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-shiraoi/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-shiraoi/A piece of driftwood lying on the pedestal was picked up by Hirakawa in Shiraoi, Hokkaido. He photographed it and wrote a program that converts the digital image into a sequence of letters by replacing the brightness value of each pixel with the corresponding letter determined by the remainder when that value is divided by the total number of letters in the alphabet. The resulting string of letters is then matched against a dictionary to extract existing English words, which are listed to generate sentences. Two displays show, respectively, the photographed image of the driftwood and the process of searching for English words within the letter sequence generated from the brightness values. On the computer screen, the generated sentences are continuously appended as they are produced. Although meaningful sentences may occasionally appear, such meaning exists only from a human perspective. The work suggests both the possibility of reapprehending nature in a manner different from the usual one and the way nature resists being fully subsumed into meanings assigned by humans.(Ayako Hiizumi, curator)Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-sk/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-sk/Generating English sentences from the signals detected by Super-Kamiokande, a neutrino observatory in Japan. Because the detector has a cylindrical geometry, its data can be unfolded into a two-dimensional representation from any rotational angle. The unfolded data are converted into alphabet sequences by dividing each numerical value by 26 and replacing the remainder with the corresponding letter of the English alphabet. The artist wrote a program that reads the letter sequences from the beginning, adding letters one by one as long as they can form the beginning of a word in a dictionary. Once a word is formed, it is extracted and the process continues from the following letter. The rotational angle is determined by a random process, changing the starting point from which the cylindrical data are read and, consequently, the generated text. Scientific inquiry typically derives meaning from the quantitative distributions and relationships contained within observational data. In this work, however, those quantitative relationships are not preserved. Instead, through random rotation and transformation into natural language, a different kind of meaning emerges. The resulting English sentences may appear meaningful, although their meaning arises not from the physical phenomena that produced the signals, but from the human system of language.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-gwangju/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/non-semantic-process-gwangju/The work uses digital images of a sedimentary rock collected in Gwangju near G.MAP, which were converted into alphabet sequences by dividing the brightness value of each pixel by 26 and replacing the numerical remainder with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. The artist wrote a program to generate English sentences by looking up each alphabet sequence in a dictionary and listing existing words. The English sentences generated may be meaningful. However, their meaning is significant only to humans, not to the wild birds perched on the rock or the aquatic insects that inhabit beneath it.Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/sai/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/sai/Thu, 10 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/S3/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/S3/In mathematics, S³ (the 3-sphere) is the set of points that are equidistant from the origin in four-dimensional Euclidean space. It is a higher-dimensional analogue of a sphere. This artwork, S³, is a literal visualization of the 3-sphere in two different ways: one using hyperspherical coordinates, and the other using Hopf coordinates. The work reflects the contrast between conceptual simplicity in its mathematical definition and the difficulty of forming a visual intuition of it.Fri, 31 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/six-petal-automata/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/six-petal-automata/Snow crystals, as expressed by the Japanese word rikka (literally six-petaled flower), possess a hexagonal lattice structure. In this work, clusters of pixels arranged on a hexagonal grid continuously generate patterns reminiscent of snowflakes by exchanging information with their neighbors. While these patterns reflect the brightness and color of a background image taken on a hiking trail in Sapporo (Mt. Moiwa), they remain chaotic and difficult to predict. The formation process of snow crystals has yet to be fully understood even by modern natural science, and no model currently exists that can accurately predict their shapes under specific conditions. Do natural phenomena follow algorithms? Or do they simply exist, while algorithms are only approximations? The Japanese title Sekka-fu (“Snowflower Charts”) is the name of a book published in 1995 by people fascinated by snow, including Dr. Yoshizumi Furukawa, former director of the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University.Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/spacecolortime/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/spacecolortime/Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/six-petal-automata-4xLCD/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/six-petal-automata-4xLCD/Snow crystals, as expressed by the Japanese word rikka (literally six-petaled flower), possess a hexagonal lattice structure. In this work, clusters of pixels arranged on a hexagonal grid continuously generate patterns reminiscent of snowflakes by exchanging information with their neighbors. While these patterns reflect the brightness and color of a background image taken on a hiking trail in Sapporo (Mt. Moiwa), they remain chaotic and difficult to predict. The formation process of snow crystals has yet to be fully understood even by modern natural science, and no model currently exists that can accurately predict their shapes under specific conditions. Do natural phenomena follow algorithms? Or do they simply exist, while algorithms are only approximations? The Japanese title Sekka-fu (“Snowflower Charts”) is the name of a book published in 1995 by people fascinated by snow, including Dr. Yoshizumi Furukawa, former director of the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University.Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/ssslp/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/ssslp/This work juxtaposes two synthesized soundscapes derived from the spectral distributions of sunlight and bengala, a pigment characteristic of Hokkaido’s ancient culture. Each spectrum is mapped onto a sound spectrum and synthesized according to its spectral distribution. By engaging perception beyond vision, the work explores alternative ways of sensing these two forms of light. In Hokkaido, bengala is known to have been spread on the bottoms of pit graves during the Jōmon period. This work is based on fieldwork conducted on the Yufutsu Plain, extending south from the Kiusu Earthwork Burial Circles (*1), focusing on bengala as a pigment associated with funerary practices. Research has shown that the bengala used in prehistoric Hokkaido was produced by firing deposits formed through the activity of iron-oxidizing bacteria. During the fieldwork, these deposits were located, collected, and fired to produce bengala. Unlike the standardized reds emitted by LCD, LED, and OLED displays, the resulting pigment exhibits unique variations in color that reflect the properties of its raw materials and the conditions under which it was fired. Additional field recordings were conducted in the same area using a 288-channel spectral sensor and a 360-degree camera, continuously logging data from sunrise to sunset. Using GPS data and the calculated position of the Sun derived from astronomical software libraries, the 360-degree imagery was reprojected into an azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the Sun and desaturated. The sound synthesized from the recorded solar spectrum is presented alongside the physical bengala produced during the fieldwork and the sound synthesized from its spectral distribution. (*1) In 2021, the Jōmon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Kiusu Earthwork Burial Circles are one of the component sites.. Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/sunlight-spectrum-sonification/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/sunlight-spectrum-sonification/With approximately 6.5 million cone cells that sense the three colors of red, green, and blue, the human eye is a 3-channel 6.5-megapixel camera. The project attempted to capture the sunlight from sunrise to sunset using two contrasting observation methods to help perceive it differently from everyday life. One is an observation by a spectral sensor that captures 288 colors but has only one pixel. The other is an observation by an omnidirectional camera that captures only one color (brightness) but has 16,588,800 pixels. In the installation, the light distribution recorded every second from sunrise to sunset by a spectral sensor is converted into a sound distribution and output from the speakers. The images projected on the screen were taken by an omnidirectional camera and developed around the sun.Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/udc/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/udc/list of bright objects in the photograph, composited from data taken by Hubble Space Telescope, named The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, found by a Computer Vision Program. every object is supposed to be a galaxy in priciple.Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://norimichihirakawa.com/works/unknowns/https://norimichihirakawa.com/works/unknowns/unknowns is an algorithm-driven video collage of the 26 interview footages. The computer program running background generates 16 digit alphabetical string by some different algorithms. At the same time, the foreground program generates a collage of the videos line by line corresponding to the generated 16 digits string. If the first digit is 'A', the first bottom pixel line on the screen is taken from 'footage 1', if the second is 'Z', the second bottom is taken from 'footage 26'. It's an attempt at generating portrait of nobody who doesn't have name with the interview with the living individuals who have name. Although each individual is telling their possible future stories which didn't come true, the audio contents of the interviews are completely muted.Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT