FRIDAY 21ST FEBRUARY 2003

TALKING ECO-TECHNOLOGY

Masaki Fujihata, digital artist

Fujihata demonstrated some of his past projects in depth, by playing video from some of his own documentation archives. “I instantly understood GPS was a very interesting technology, as at that time, I had been doing computer graphics and in those days, you had to type numbers to define 3D objects, whereas GPS systems digitise your position in 3D”

Fujihata explained that he spent two years realising an exhibition of his Mount Fuji project, because in 1994 it was very difficult to render 3D in real-time. He even made physical models of his different realisations of Mount Fuji.

Afterwards, he expanded the idea to another project focused on Lake Shinji, entitled Field-Works@Lake_Shinji. After showing behind-the-scenes footage showing how the data for that project was gathered, he spoke about the similar project he will undertake in Summer 2003, focusing on Mersea Island in Essex.

“It’s all about public participation and collecting different shapes of Mersea Island. I will give a video camera and GPS to participants, and they will circle the edge of Mersea Island. According to the speed of each person, the distance of their walk will differ: if they walk slower, they will make a bigger island. The project is about collecting different shapes from different people. And we will find out what parts of the island people are most curious about, because we will be able to see when they walk more slowly.”

Fujihata then showed foo6tage of a similar project, entitled Field-Work@Alsace, which explored the border between France and Germany, with Alsace in between. He said: “Afterwards, I realised that a strong border existed within my mobile phone, which was not the same as the geographical border.” He kept receiving text messages welcoming him to France or Germany.