ICC

"DriftNet"
2005
HIRAKAWA Norimichi
photo: KIOKU Keizo
Big waves surge in a screen-filling computer-generated ocean. When you move, as if crawling through the waves of information generated from the data, you see a link emerging between the waves. The next website is determined by the conditions of the waves, and new waves of data rush towards you again.
These abstract waves are generated by downloading content data, which is supposed to be viewed on browsers in the intangible and virtual space of the Internet, as a sequence of numerical data. This work accesses the Internet without the interfaces we usually need to see websites, such as a mouse, keyboard, and browser. The term "net surf," which refers to the act of visiting and viewing websites, is a physical metaphor that reminds us of actual space. In this work, we literally move our body to access to the information space of the Internet and, as the title suggests, drift through the Internet.
HIRAKAWA Norimichi uses computer-programmed interactive expressions in his works to enable people to grasp phenomena that they can hardly recognize in their daily life, on a gigantic scale, and experience them by using intuitive interfaces. His works are triggers to stir the imagination, with devices to help us towards new perceptions of our daily life and to recognize the world afresh.
Internet
The Internet is a distributed computer network that interconnects networks around the world. The World Wide Web has boosted use of the Internet by the general public and businesses. In general, when we access to information on the web via browsers, vast amounts of information are exchanged in a way imperceptible to human beings. Some artists focus on such systems and create works that can be developed in an actual exhibition space.