❉ The Shape of Information
情報の形
CHOJU Contemporary Art
Kyoto, 2017
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Positive meniscus
(A century of waterlevel changes due to verticle diastrophism)
This series of drawings depicts Japan as a positive meniscus lens, similar to the crystalline lens of the human eye. The faint pencil lines form ray diagrams that illustrate how such lenses bring parallel rays of light into sharp focus. The colours of the map represent changes in water levels across the country over the past 100 years. Geologists use this data to study plate tectonics and improve long-term earthquake predictions.
Positive meniscus (A century of waterlevel changes due to verticle diastrophism)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Binary bodies
(Rotating bodies on fabric)
The specific gravitational waves detected by LIGO on September 14, 2015 came from the merger of two black holes, approximately 29 and 36 times the mass of our Sun respectively, located about 1.3 billion light-years away from Earth. As they spiraled closer together, they released an enormous amount of energy in the form of gravitational waves, briefly radiating more power than all the stars in the observable universe combined. When these massive objects merged, they formed a single black hole of about 62 solar masses. The missing 3 solar masses were converted into gravitational wave energy, creating ripples in spacetime that traveled across the cosmos until they were detected on Earth. This first detection was a milestone in physics, not only confirming Einstein’s century-old prediction but also opening a new window for observing the universe through gravitational waves rather than electromagnetic radiation.
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Binary Bodies (Rotating bodies on fabric
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
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Icon for Brownian motion with transparent disks
(7 particles)
This series depicts Brownian motion — the random, erratic movement of microscopic particles suspended in a fluid (liquid or gas), caused by continuous collisions with fast-moving molecules. Named after botanist Robert Brown, who first observed it in 1827 while studying pollen grains under a microscope. He noticed particles jiggling randomly, even in inorganic materials like dust, ruling out life as the cause. In 1905, Albert Einstein showed that this visible jiggling results from unequal molecular bombardments, providing direct statistical evidence for the existence of atoms — whose reality was still debated at the time. This icon visualises the unique random dance of seven particles in 3D space.
Icon for Brownian motion with transparent disks (7 particles)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Epicentres
Map of changes in water levels in Japan from the last 100 years due to the movement of plate tectonics.
Epicentres, 2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Apeirogon
As more sides are added to a simple shape, turning a triangle into a square, then a pentagon, a hexagon, and beyond, the form gets closer and closer to becoming a perfect circle. An apeirogon is an imaginary polygon taken to the ultimate limit: it has an infinite number of sides. Instead of turning into a circle (which, after all, has just one continuous edge), this impossible shape can be pictured as a single straight line that stretches forever through the universe. Because something truly infinite cannot be drawn on ordinary paper, mathematicians use a special curved space called hyperbolic geometry, often shown as a Poincaré disk. This drawing places the apeirogon inside a beautiful, wreath-like Poincaré disk. In doing so, it turns an unrepresentable mathematical idea into a striking visual meditation on infinity, geometry, and the limits of what we can imagine.
Apeirogon, 2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Horocycle
(Poincaré Disk)
In ordinary geometry, a circle always has a fixed centre and a constant distance from that centre. In hyperbolic geometry — a curved, non-Euclidean form of space with very different rules — there exists a special curve called a horocycle. It behaves like a “circle of infinite radius” whose centre lies at infinity. When visualised in the Poincaré disk model, a horocycle appears as an ordinary-looking circle that touches the outer boundary of the disk at exactly one point. From every point along the curve, lines drawn perpendicular to it all converge asymptotically toward the same ideal point at infinity. This drawing places the horocycle inside a beautiful, wreath-like Poincaré disk. In doing so, it transforms an abstract and counter-intuitive mathematical object into a striking visual meditation on infinity, curvature, and the surprising elegance of non-Euclidean geometry.
Horocycle, (Poincaré Disk)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
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Enneper with 2 catenoidal ends
(Pink and Blue)
The Enneper surface is a classic example of a minimal surface, a special kind of mathematical shape that stretches between boundaries using the smallest possible amount of material, like the thinnest soap film that can form between two wire loops. These elegant, efficient surfaces appear in nature and have real-world uses in architecture, material science, and physics. They are usually named after the mathematicians who first described them. The Enneper surface was discovered in 1864 by the German mathematician Alfred Enneper (1830–1885). This particular drawing shows a rare and beautiful variation called Enneper with 2 Catenoidal Ends. It combines the swirling, flower-like centre of the classic Enneper surface with two smooth, tunnel-shaped “catenoid” extensions — the same graceful curve a soap film makes when stretched between two rings.
Enneper with 2 catenoidal ends (Pink and Blue)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Uniformly magnetised sphere
(Nano dot simulation)
'Uniformly Magnetised Sphere' (Nano Dot Simulation) makes the hidden energy of computers visible in a clear, diagrammatic way. It shows a tiny computer model called a “nanodot” — a microscopic storage unit used inside modern hard drives and memory chips. In the drawing, hundreds of tiny red arrows form a swirling pattern. These arrows represent magnetic particles that flip direction together to store the basic “yes/no” information (the 0s and 1s) that every computer uses. The work acts as a visual puzzle or “koan.” It creates a strange, looping idea: the computer is using an enormous amount of power to draw a picture of the very same tiny magnetic mechanism that allows computers to exist in the first place. Even more surprising is the hidden cost — to simulate just one of these microscopic magnetic particles on screen, the computer itself needs tens of millions of real physical atoms (silicon, copper, and gold) working inside its chips and circuits. In this fusion of physics, technology, and philosophy, the drawing reveals the vast, unseen flows of energy and materials that lie behind even the smallest piece of digital information.
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Positive meniscus (A century of waterlevel changes due to verticle diastrophism)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
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Dust in the Northern sky with false positive (after Planck)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Dust in the Southern sky with false positive (after Planck)
2017, 35 x 35cm, Ink and watercolour on paper
Dust in the Northern and Southern Skies
(after Plank)
These two delicate watercolour paintings reproduce the exact Planck satellite map that overturned a Nobel prize worthy discovery. In 2014, The BICEP2 South Pole telescope had announced swirling “B-mode” patterns in the cosmic microwave background as the first direct evidence of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic inflation. The right-hand circle shows the Southern sky, colour-coded by galactic dust emission (red = heavy contamination, blue = cleaner). The small black box drawn in a dashed line marks the precise patch studied by BICEP2. The left circle shows the Northern sky for comparison. What was celebrated as proof of Big Bang inflation was, in fact, foreground dust in our own Milky Way. The drawings quietly meditate on how easily the universe’s deepest signals can be masked by local noise.