Motomichi Nakamura Interview

Dyske Suematsu: When did you come to the States?

Motimichi Nakamura: First time I came here I was 18, then I went back to Japan, and a year or two later came back to the U.S. and went to upstate New York, to Rockland County. I went to a community college; I thought it would be nice to study my first a few years outside of the city. After that, I transferred to Parson's School of Design. I majored in communication design first, then I changed my major to illustration.

DS: Did you use computers in school?

MN: The first time I took a computer class was when I was upstate at the community college. When I was at Parsons, I took as many computer classes as I could. That time, everyone wanted to use computers. Computers were such a great tool. But when I was in school there was some prejudice against using computers, the mainstream was still to draw and paint.

DS: How long did you live in Ecuador?

MN: I lived in Ecuador for about 3 years. I started a Web design company in the capital of Ecuador, Quito. South America is somewhere I always wanted to go to. I went there twice before I decided to actually move there. It was a really interesting experience. Life is totally different there.

DS: Was there much demand for Web design in Ecuador?

MN: There were many companies who wanted to have website there, but economy was so difficult.

DS: It seems that the South American culture had some influence on you. You seem to like using Spanish in your work.

MN: I do use Spanish a lot. I like the language. When I use something, just like anyone else, I have rational reasons, but I also use it because I like it. I like South American culture in general: food, Latin music, etc.

DS: How long have you been living in the US?

MN: I think 9 years total.

DS: Do you go back to Japan a lot?

MN: I do. I go back once or a twice a year. When I was living in Ecuador, I didn't because the flight took over 20 hours. Now that I live in New York, I do go back a lot. Either my family visits me here, or I go visit them. I'm still in touch with the Japanese culture. I know some Japanese people here, and I go to JAS mart also [laugh]. (JAS Mart is a chain of Japanese convenient stores.)

DS: Have you shown your work in Japan?

MN: I would like to, but I haven't yet. Commercially I've done some stuff and artistically I showed my animations on NHK. I would like to participate in exhibitions in the future.

DS: Do you still feel you are Japanese? Or do you feel you are in a limbo?

MN: I do feel 100 percent Japanese. But after leaving for such a long time in the U.S. I may be start to lose the more traditional aspects of being Japanese.

DS: Do you feel comfortable with being called a Japanese artist?

MN: I don't mind being called that at all, but, just like anyone else, I don't like to be categorized.

DS: Did you always wanted to be an artist?

MN: When I was little, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I always had a fish tank and stuff. I was very serious about it.

DS: Did you grow up reading a lot of cartoons?

MN: Not so much. If you grow up in Japan you live with them but I've never been a big fan of comic books.

DS: Technically, your style is well suited for Flash. Did Flash inspire your style, or did you always liked that simple vector style?

MN: I think I've always been into things that are simple and graphic. The reason why at first I studied graphic design was because I was never a big fan of realism. I remember before Flash came out, the only animation tool available was Macromedia Director. I used to have a hard time with it, because I could never get clean edge.

DS: Violence and sex are usually depicted with a lot of details. If you were given a budget to make a film, or high-resolution animations like Akira, would you be interested in doing that?

MN: I'm not interested in depicting violence so explicitly. I'm just trying to portray the concept behind the nature of violence. Even if I got a big budget, I would still be interested in doing graphical work and not high-resolution animations. I would rather invest the additional budget in audio content for my work. That would ideal.

DS: In many of your animations, I feel a sense of social oppression, especially in "Add Boiling Water". I think it's a kind of tension and pressures that is familiar to many Japanese, which sometimes turns into violence. Is that something you intended?

MN: That's very interesting, because Japan is very safe, economy is great but some people are still frustrated. Eventhough my work doesn't focus on this aspect of Japanese culture, maybe because I'm Japanese my visuals do tend to reflect that sense of social oppression.

DS: Are you interested in dealing with any specific cultures in your work?

MN: After I created "Add Boiling Water", I consciously tried to go as far away as possible from anything personal or culture-specific. I tried to make it very general, like in "Punto Zero", so that as many people as possible could actually understand my work.

DS: You seem to like the format of music video. Do you find something compelling in that particular format?

MN: Definitely. I started VJing not long ago. I find it very interesting. This combined effort between DJs/musicians playing and me mixing the video at the same time, trying to sync in is very inspiring to me.

DS: Amputated body parts seem to be a common theme in your work, especially chopped heads.

MN: Human sacrifice was related to the outlet of public frustration in primitive societies. I've used the theme symbolically in may of my animations.

DS: Even though sexuality seems to be a common theme in your work, no one seems to talk about it, including your own descriptions of your work. Why is that?

MN: It's true, people don't usually ask me about that. To me sex is one more aspect of human nature and since I don't want to neglect any important aspect I do use the theme of sex in some of my work.

DS: Any future plan or upcoming work you can share with us?

MN: VJing is keeping me busy. It's fun. I play at Remote Lounge and Subtonic. I'm actually going to England next week to VJ. That's going to be a lot of fun. A lot of VJs are coming from all over the world.