Taisuke Murakami, Art Gallery: N-Space contributor

Contact Water
- a new type of art in mixed reality space

'I wanted to create a new medium, which uses a combination of reality images and computer graphics' said Taisuke Murakami.

Murakami is a media artist from Japan, and the person behind the installation "Contact World" at the Art Gallery: N-Space at SIGGRAPH 2001.

Contact Water is something totally different from an ordinary art. The spectators are participating together in a kind of semi-virtual world, or rather MRS – Mixed Reality Space. They are looking through their virtual reality goggles, and throwing virtual fishes to each other or back to the central fountain in the middle.

The hand is in general very important for communication so therefore I wanted to use it when I created this new medium, says Taisuke Murakami.

Murakami's idea was realized into practice thanks to a collaboration between Murakami and Canon Inc. after it was awarded the first grand prize at the Mixed Reality Entertainment Conference in year 2000.

- Anders Frick