The ‘thinness’ is given to the plane: A study of the ‘plane’ in Masaki Fujihata’s works

This article examines what the ‘plane’ in Masaki Fujihata’s works is. Although Fujihata is known as one of the most famous media artists, the work Unformed Symbols is not that well known—just an animation work which Fujihata started his artistic career from. In making this, and other works—i.e., the ‘sculpture,’ Forbidden Fruits and interactive art works like Beyond Pages—however, he discovered, for himself, the possibility of computer graphics, and, as I explore in this paper, came to tackle the problem of the plane with, for perhaps the first time, the computer.

I consider three of Fujihata’s works in order to consider this handling of the plane as it exists in his works. First, I compare the plane in Forbidden Fruits with Leo Steinberg’s the flatbed picture plane. This consideration makes clear that the plane is no longer the privileged role for the image in a collection of data. Secondly, I make a comparison between the interactive work Beyond Pages and the Graphical User Interface in order to show that the plane in the computer, through both artwork and utilitarian feature, becomes too thin to grasp with our hands. Thirdly, I ponder why the animation Unformed Symbols overlaps the image with the real, showing that there is no difference between the plane and the solid in this ‘thin’ world. Accordingly, I conclude that Fujihata may have created a new plane itself by creating a ‘thinness’ which causes a ‘switchover between dimensions’ to that of the plane.

Incidentally, the architect Junya Ishigami’s Table, which has a very thin tabletop shows some similarities to Fujihata’s ‘thin’ plane. And furthermore, in his architectural critique, Taro Igarashi refers to the tabletop of Table as Superflat. Thus, I finally point out that Fujihata’s ‘thin’ plane shares a homology with Superflat, which, as proposed by the artist Takashi Murakami and developed into the discussion about information by the philosopher Hiroki Azuma, has come to be fundamental concept for modern Japanese art, and also suggest this ‘switchover between dimensions’.

First draft:A ‘plane’ on Masaki Fujihata’s works: Gravity/Projection/Overlapping

Masaki Fujihata is know as one the famous media artist. Although almost all people think that Fujihata’s work is interactive, Unformed Symbols (2006) is not an interactive work, just an animation one. Fujihata’s early work Forbidden Fruites is a ‘sculpture’, it is not the interactive, either. I would like focus on not an ‘interactive’ aspect of Fujihata’s work but a ‘plane‘ one because he often refer the planeness about his works.

Fujihata discover an unique field in the computer where there is no difference between the plane and solid. Forbidden Fruites are made by the Stereolithography which makes a solid from pilling many planes up. Fujihata used this technique in order to directly take out a shape of data form the computer. In Forbidden Fruites, the planes become the solid. I will compare the plane in Forbidden Fruits with Leo Steinberg’s the flatbed picture plane in order to make clear the meaning of the plane in the data.

Beyond Pages is the most famous in Fujihata’s work because it is the interactive one. Although Fujihata points out that Beyond Pages propose new semiotic issues, I consider that this work also give a question; What is the plane in Graphical User Interface age. GUI shows a new two-dimensional surface due to that it is not two-dimensional but looks two-dimensional. Beyond Pages projects the image of pages onto the table, then we regard it as the book. However we can not grab the book on the table because it too thin to catch it. There is overlapping very thin image plane on the desktop. Beyond Pages show us that every planes in GUI is too thin to grasp with our hand.

Unformed Symbols overlaps the image trumps with the real trumps. Fujihata does not use the computer in this work, therefore this is not interactive one. However, this overlapping makes new thin world on the table top, then we experience more complex interaction in the physical law than the computer does. Jyunya Ishigami makes a big thin table. This table’s thinness is very strange which is very similar with Unformed Symbols. These works do not use the computer. However, more complex interaction happens in two works because of their own thin plane. The plane is not only the plane, but also the solid. We already meet this situation on the computer, but Fujihata’s Unformed Symbols and Ishigami’s Table make no gravity field in the real gravitational world. In this thin world, there is no difference between the plane and the solid.

I would like to call Fujihata an architect of the plane. Of course, Fujihata is an artist but I dare to say he is the architect in the superflat age. Fujihata anticipates the architects in the superflat movement. The superflat is the idea of Takashi Murakami in order to export the Japanese art into the world wide art market. Although the superflat comes from the Japanese subculture, this idea is also related with the computer’s flat world like GUI. We start to refer to computer engineers as IT architects, therefore I call Masaki Fujihata who knows the essence of the computer as the architect of the plane.