By Marie Chatel
Think Disney or Pixar led to the rise of 3D animated images? Well, you might need to reconsider the influence of Japanese animes. In the early 1980s, a time when animation was mostly drawn and then digitized, computer graphics artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi (born 1952) was the first to build three-dimensional computer-generated images solely based on algorithms and mathematics. With techniques still up-to-date, he changed the course of image making, introducing notions of volume, movements, and high-definition textures, let’s dig into the work of this remarkable precursor of digital art.
Kawaguchi made his first computer images in 1975, three years before graduating from Tokyo University of Education. He started off playing with simple geometries of black and white lines and soon developed a passion for generative processes, creating drawings with computer commands which allowed the design to evolve on their own. As he explains, “Even if I have no clear idea about the details of shape development, I can achieve previously unknown shapes just by defining a production condition for the development of such shapes.” This work translated into Kawaguchi’s “growth model,” a self-organizing, formative algorithm for computationally reproducing the growing phenomena of branches or cell divisions.
Morphogenesis is a recurring theme of Kawaguchi’s career, and one always imbued with organic shapes and the living. Growing up on a tropical island called Tanegashima, Kawaguchi discovered his love for the ocean and marine species young and consistently fueled his work with interpretations of shells, spiraling plants, medusas, and other blobby fantastic creatures. Are these organic elements real or not? Have they existed on Earth or elsewhere? Could they live one day? Kawaguchi never intended to produce faithful representations but directly focused on understanding principles of biomorphism underlying the generation of forms so that he created new pictorial spaces based on algorithms. The theme of organic change and evolution dear to the Japanese culture is also one core to digital art which later fascinated figures like Dieter Huber, William Latham, and Karl Sims, all working on the simulation of organisms, often called “artificial life.”
Conspicuously Kawaguchi worked with Professor Koichi Omura at the University of Osaka when his lab developed LINKS-1, a computer graphic system for realistic renderings. The machine was unprecedented for its processing power and unlike super-computers at the time, consisted of 34–62 regular-size processors connected in a networked system for faster calculations and the easy removal of deficient parts. From summer 1982 to spring 1983 — an extraordinarily short duration process — Omura and Kawaguchi used the LINKS to develop, Growth: Mysterious Galaxy a complex, 5-minutes-long animation sequence which stunned the computer art community at ACM SIGGRAPH that year — including Pixar’s then-president Ed Catmull who noted the piece’s unique sharpness and image quality.
Growth: Mysterious Gallaxy (1983) was the first example in 3D of using two techniques now essential to image rendering: ray tracing and metaballs. Ray tracing is an optical technique that calculates the luminance of each pixel, in Omura and Kawaguchi’s case, defining the color which should be rendered to give the 3D image some depth. The pair were indeed the first to use this technique for the representation of organic-looking n-dimensional objects called “metaballs.” Technologies changed and while he started using machines like Toyo Links “Personal Links” (1983-87) and Silicon Graphics (1987–2003), he continued producing short films like Embryo (1988), Gigalopolis (1995), and Cytolon (2002) which are telling of the process through which Kawaguchi perfected his technical and visual know-how.
In 1991, Eggy (1990) owed Kawaguchi a distinction for computer animation at the Prix Ars Electronica as he re-purposed his blobby, organic shapes to depict robot-like organisms in a 3D moving image. Since 1986 he researched High Definition TV (HDTV) and brought digital imagery to everyday objects, as show his giant plastic sculptures of Growth Tendrils and Eggies, as well as his pattern-printed kimonos — all strongly influenced by the Japanese visual tradition. In his late practice, he has also worked with performers in building “Gemotion,” an interface where his 3D productions, modeled on living organisms, follow the movements and shapes of dancers (Gemon Dance, 2000). Kawaguchi displayed his pieces at international venues like Images du Futur in Montreal, ISEA, Ars Electronica, the Venice Biennale, and at ACM SIGGRAPH, and in 2010 received the latter’s ultimate prize for lifetime achievement. He also taught extensively at the Nippon Electronics College where he introduced the cross-disciplinary teaching of fine art and technology, as well as the University of Tokyo, from which he just retired earlier this year.
