Opening reception: Sunday December 15, 6:30-9pm
The artist is present.
List of works: https://privateviews.artlogic.net/2/2005bd64accb41bd110afe/
Kazumasa Teshigawara's mimizu began with a peculiar moment: feeding meat paté into code. What emerged were not mere algorithms but undulating forms with an uncanny vitality, marking the beginning of a decade-long obsession. Known as qubibi, Teshigawara has spent years perfecting these digital organisms that seem to dance between states of being – never fully tamed, never entirely wild.
The exhibition presents the final iterations of mimizu – works that evolved from the artist's "hello world" algorithm yet depart radically from their origin. Each piece manifests as its own system of lines, oscillating between densely packed surfaces and sparse threads that, in qubibi's words, create "hills in the foreground and a night sky expanding in the distance." These works confound computational art's reputation for cold precision, instead achieving something remarkably close to consciousness. The exhibition marks the conclusion of the mimizu algorithm, as no further works will be generated from this system after this final showcase.
Central to the exhibition is the premiere of the mimizu book – a formidable 600-page volume that chronicles this evolving body of work. Each of the 90 limited editions features hand-crafted binding and one of four distinct covers, three of which showcase previously unreleased works. Housed in bespoke red sleeves, with afterword texts by Mimi Nguyen and Casey Reas, these volumes materialize a decade of digital experimentation into tangible form.
"It's like pottery," qubibi reflects, "First, you carefully choose the materials, shape them, and then bake them." This deceptively simple analogy belies the complexity of his practice – one that has consistently pushed against the constraints of code to achieve something approaching the intuitive, the living.
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Kazumasa Teshigawara, also known as qubibi, is a Japanese digital art artist and designer specializing in a single system he has been honing since 2010. Throughout his artistic career, qubibi has received numerous accolades, including the D&AD and Cannes Advertising Prize. He has also been featured in a variety of group and solo exhibitions in venues such as Art Basel Miami, or Museum of Digital Art Zurich.