Rhizomatiks

Rhizomatiks is a Japanese company which is dedicated to creating large scale commercial and artistic projects using both arts and technology. Founded in 2006, the company has members from various fields such as visual arts, media arts, computer programming, architecture, engineering and more. It has collaborated with various professionals and companies to produce music, dance recitals, videos and even sports such as a figure skate, facing, basketball and synchronised swimming. It came to wide attention in 2008 with Daito Manabe's YouTube video and 2010 with Perfume's live concert at Tokyo Dome and participated at Ars Electronica and transmedia festivals around the world.

Origin
Rhizomatiks was founded as a collective of creative people in 2006 in Tokyo to work on large-scale commercial projects. some of its early projects were with the Japanese pop group Perfume, with the single Polyrhythm in 2007, which led to touring with the band. They became widely noticed with a video piece in 2008 called Electric Stimulus To Face, which had more than a million YouTube hits in its first month.

The company went international, becoming a fixture at transmedia festivals around the world and expanded its portfolio by ten times.

In 2014, it collaborated with dance troupe Elevenplay, appearing at the Festival Internacional Cervantino. It also participated in the Art Fair Tokyo 2015, by displaying its "mega-synth system," which worked like a regular synthesizer.

In 2023 the company collaborated with two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu in the creation of his solo ice show Gift, the first ice show to be held at Tokyo Dome.

Members
Rhizomatiks is an eclectic combination of creators which includes architects, visual artists, media artists, designers, musicians, engineers and programmers.

The founder of the group is Daito Manabe (1976), an artist, composer, programmer, designer, DJ and VJ. Manabe is from a traditional media art environment, with a degree in dynamic sensory programming from the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences and a degree in mathematics from the Tokyo University of Science.

The CTO of the group is Motoi Ishibashi (1976), an artist and engineer. Lives and works in Tokyo. Ishibashi studied control systems engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, followed by mechanical and image processing engineering at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) in Gifu, at the inception of digital media production. He met Manabe at IAMAS, who was also a student there. He is currently working on the development of new artistic methods touching on both the visual environment and the elaboration of engineering solutions in terms of artistic production and interactive public spaces. In 2011, he and Manabe were the recipients of an Award of Distinction in the interactive art category of the Prix Ars Electronica. That same year, he received the Excellence Award at the 15th edition of the Japan Media Art Festival. Since 2015, he has co-directed Rhizomatiks Research along with Manabe, a strand devoted to research and development in the spheres of art, technology and entertainment.

Founding member Seiichi Saito (1975) studied architectural design At Columbia University in New York and worked in advertising starting in 2000 before returning to Japan and joining Rhizomatiks. His is noted for this three-dimensional interactive commercial art work, based on architectural concepts. Today he is the director of the company and also lectures part-time at the Tokyo University of Science.

Another founding member is Hidenori Chiba, who has a background in website development. Currently, he is in charge of web design, system engineering and programming.

Other members of the company include Satoshi Horii, Daisuke Nakahama, Hiroyasu Kimora, Sumito Kamoi, Ichiro Kojima, Youichi Sakamoto, Muryo Honma, Motoi Ishibashi and Keisuki Arikuni and more people.

Work and artistry
Rhizomatiks produces interactive materials with its work crossing the boundaries between design, art and entertainment. Projects often involved collecting massive amounts of data using motion capture, kinect controllers and sensors to track dance movements in order to recreate human forms and movements as 3-D representations in real time. It also uses projection mapping, lasers, sonar, robots and drones.

Rhizomatiks uses new ideas for artistic expression and commercial projects. Its commercial pieces tend to be on a larger scale because of funding, with leadership varying over projects. The company's founder Manabe says, 'Rhizomatiks is like a music label' . Prominent member and CTO, Shunichi Shimizu says,' People with similar values gather and each person pursues different projects. They’re a challenging group of people, ''Whether the project's commercial or noncommercial in nature, they aren’t able to stop trying something new. They are not just artists, they’re also Japanese craftsmen who focus on detail. This might also explain why they are essentially ‘process driven’ (in the way they approach projects)'''