Tota Hasegawa

What

Interactive multimedia, including installations, CD-ROMs and Web-based work.

Where

Tokyo, Japan

Age

28

Define your work

‘Interactive thing. I just love to think about what kind of content is going to be most cool but I can’t really define it beyond that.’

Background

Goldsmiths College, University of Westminster, Computer Related design at the Royal College of Art. Interaction designer at Sony Creative Centre Human Interface Group; Sony Computer Science Lab/ Interaction Lab. ‘Two kinds of opposing education styles tried variously to shape me to work firstly at Silicon Valley and also encourage me to do useless and crazy stuff. The latter definitely had a greater influence on what I am doing at the moment.’

Sample projects

Samurai Blood System interactive installation for Rotterdam Film Festival, using the language of Japanese samurai films of the 1960s.

Where would you say your work fits into current interaction design?

‘It’s a difficult question, because I don’t think interaction design has a final shape yet. We are making lots of mistakes and shit examples to establish the vocabulary of interaction design. I wouldn’t call it interaction design maybe “experiments for interactive design”.’

Who’s work in your area (or other areas that inform your work) do you admire?

‘John Maeda.’

Are there any examples of your work you are particularly happy with?

‘Microphone Fiend, a CD-ROM published by Digitalogue (in Japan). I made the core part of it when I was a student and it was purely about experiments in interaction design. It requires a user to blow on to the microphone to interact with the screen contents.’

How do you develop ideas?

‘I use Macromedia Director to develop an idea and finish up. I don’t use sketch books much… I can project my ideas in Director much better because the stuff I do is more about interaction and things in motion rather than still pictures.’

Is most of your commercial work developed with the client from the ideas stage or is a lot of it implementation of its ideas?

‘From my own ideas!’

Work or play?

‘100 per cent play so far.’

Would you say your work is equally effective in physical and virtual space?

‘I think it has to be effective in both physical and virtual space. I believe that the relationship between physical and virtual elements is the most important element when we are talking about man/ machine interaction.’

Future Shocks

Hasegawa quit Sony last month, and will soon be joining Tomato Interactive.

Website

www.tota.ne.jp/