What are your earliest memories, going back as far as your childhood, of wanting to be an artist?

My grandmother from my mother’s side was an oil painter and my grandmother from my father’s side was a Noh dancer, and I think because of them I was always aware that there was such a thing as an “artist.” One day when I was around 9 or 10, I showed my grandmother—the one who painted—a watercolor of a tree I’d made on a field trip at school. She really liked it and she kept telling me how strong and energetic the tree looked.

What a great way to describe a painted tree. It’s important for a young artist’s family to encourage their first efforts.

I remember that it made me really happy and that I felt very proud when she told me she liked it. Maybe she was just being nice—you know how grandmothers can be—but now that I look back on the moment, that could have been the first time I kind of imagined myself doing something like painting or creating something visual.

Which mediums were you focusing on in your practice before you arrived at projection mapping?

I worked as a web designer after finishing college, and I started making animation after that. Later I started VJing and that led to projection mapping. And I still consider myself an animator.

Animation feels like an intrinsic element of your practice. When did you first experiment with projection mapping, and what do you remember about discovering it as a medium?

That was in 2012. I was living in Quito, Ecuador at the time, and I was asked by the city’s government to do a public projection in the old town there. I didn’t know anything about mapping yet, so everything was new to me. But one thing I was really impressed with was how people started interacting with the projection and wanting to be “in” it, or be part of it rather than simply watching it.

There’s a filmic component to projection mapping. Who are a couple of your favorite directors?

I would say Michel Gondry and Takeshi Kitano.

And what do you like about each of them?

I love the way Gondry creates witty, artistic, fun work that is almost like playing magic tricks. My favorite music videos of his are “Star Guitar” by the Chemical Brothers, “Come Into My World” by Kylie Minogue, and “Around The World” by Daft Punk.

When it comes to Takeshi Kitano, I particularly like Violent Cop. It was his very first film so it’s kind of raw and unrefined. I was so stunned by it and, maybe because I am Japanese, it made me recognize something that I was avoiding seeing.

I like how Kitano will spend time with very simple everyday things even in the midst of an action film.

Violent Cop starts with an ordinary and almost painfully long walking scene, which I really love.

What is a dream project you’d like to make one day?

I love watching music videos because they produce strong emotions along with the visuals and they reach out to many people. So it could be a music video, a concert video, a big installation, or even a live-action film, but I would love to direct and create large-scale sceneries using popular music.

Do you see any similarities between projection mapping and the burgeoning technologies of AR and VR?

I see projection mapping as VR without the headset and with real-life objects, or as AR but outside of screens. The main limitation of projection mapping is shadow. No matter how you position the projectors, there is always space between the lens and the surface where you can’t enter without casting a shadow. I hope to see some kind of solution, maybe a combination of projection with VR, to improve this limitation. I also would like to see a drastic decrease in the size of projectors. As of now, projectors that are typically used for large venues can easily weigh over 50 pounds. That requires a lot of effort to transport and install. Once they become smaller and more energy-efficient I think it will open a lot of possibilities in projection art.