From Skydomes to Simulations: Interview with Yoshi Sodeoka

In this interview, Ivan Zhyzhkevych a.k.a. ‘Lonliboy’ and Yoshi Sodeoka discuss Sodeoka’s personal and artistic philosophies, the sun’s symbolism, choreography of sound and visuals, connection to nature, and much more. This arrives ahead of Sodeoka's latest exhibition on Verse, The Swarm, presented by SOLOS.

IZ: Within the works, there is a visual of tracking - a sense of mathematical, linear logic. Is there a commentary within the series about our need as humans for control and understanding of everything around us? 

YS: I wouldn’t go that far to say something like that. I think the whole project is more personal. I’m making these for myself, to imagine how the universe may be built around us. I’m just happy that resonates with some people. 

IZ: Was this series inspired by scientific experiments? 

YS: Not particularly by experiments, but maybe by a lot of science books explaining things about the universe. I’m a huge fan of scientific diagrams and I’m always fascinated by graphic design for those diagrams. Like these for example:

IZ: How were the backgrounds of mountains and natural environments created for this series? Are they imaginary places, or real places on Earth?

YS: Those are made with an AI skydome generator. Those are all imaginary places with no people and I like it that way. I feel like that gives a sense of dystopia. Regarding this skydome generator, I only use AI as a utility. I only choose to make something generic without any wacky AI glitches. And they may be sort of low resolution but sort of not, that’s just a limitation that we have with this particular AI engine, but blurriness works for this project because it gives a classic sense of the depth of field that we emulate in 3d videos. 

IZ: Within many pieces, there is heavy-use of the sun and radiating rings created from its intensity. Can you speak about it’s inclusion? In the “Foundation” mode when elements of the piece are stripped back to show their flow of motion, why does the sun have many circles radiating around it? 

YS: In my videos, the sun implies power and majesty. But I don’t mean that religiously or spiritually. The idea is more scientific. The sun provides energy and life. 

IZ: The choreography first beings with environments, then layers and vector graphics are added while the background is stripped away, until we are left with only the green screen and birds. Could you speak about this specific choreography and what it signifies? 

YS: This is almost about my editing trick. It helps to grab the viewer’s attention with a simple view of nature. Then it starts to evolve into more vector overlays and green screens. When you watch this in loop, it’s start to become one things. I treat my short videos like making a film. I used to edit a lot of music videos. So, I think I picked it up from that. 

IZ: The background of the piece rotates as the video plays through, could you speak about this aspect?

YS: With the rotation, it helps viewers to give you a sense of immersive space and that’s important especially when you are making videos on small scales.

IZ: While most of the pieces in the generative set are within natural environments, a small handful are in cities - could you speak about their inclusion? 

YS: That is what the world is in a way. I read somewhere that the earth consists of urban areas: 1% to 3% vs natural areas: 97% to 99%. So, in a way, I made too many city views. 

IZ: Is this series a journey of your personal self-understanding of the world around you? If so, what has the experience taught you/you have reflected with the works? 

YS: Nothing too serious like that. But I do enjoy being outside during the summertime in NYC. My wife and I spend a lot of time on weekends going to a bunch of different parks and lying down on the grass, staring at the sky. I observe a lot of birds, clouds, and sun and sounds also. and with my vivid imagination, I see a lot of shapes and colors in it. 

IZ: Could you explain a bit about the visuals such as the arrows, circular motifs, textboxes, red outlines at intersections etc?

YS: That simply works visually for me. I like fine art as much as graphic design. I studied both in art school. So, my knowledge of graphic design helps for something like this. 

IZ: Why birds, do you generally like birds? Did you study flight patterns and implement them from statistics, or did you imagine your own flight paths/logic for the birds? 

YS: I like birds but not in a way that bird watchers do. But I still observe a lot of it and am fascinated by how they fly and why they do it. A lot of people in NYC don’t even pay attention to it. But I do.  It's a perfect subject for my art. How I animate isn’t anything scientific though, I make it up as I go. I animated them based on my memories or video clips that I shot myself in the city. Watching birds at the back of the Staten Island Ferry is my favorite. The way those seagulls follow the ferry is just incredible. 

IZ: How long have you been working with these themes? 

YS: I’ve worked with birds and other creatures as motifs in my work in the past. 

I started to build short pieces about 1, 2 years ago with birds and insects. This particular Verse series The Swarm took about 4 months or so to complete. 

IZ: How did this series start? 

YS: I had a solo show in Tokyo at the gallery called Calm & Punk in 2023. Before that, I was already working with bird simulations and it was a perfect concept for my show. 

I also was working with my music collaborator Max Cooper around the same time. He and I brainstormed some ideas. He and I have very similar interests in nature and science. We ended up making this video together which debuted at a festival in Italy called Seme. Max also played a big show at the Barbican Center in England with my video in that too. The description of it on the Youtube page describes the process pretty well from his and my end.

The main thing was to make short videos that are emotionally engaging but also experimental at the same time. It’s not very difficult to simulate and make a realistic video with birds in the sky that looks “nice”. But I have no intention of making some wholesome nature videos. I want my video to have some experimental edge to it. These can be somewhat challenging to watch for some people with a lot of quick cuts and everything. And that’s ok. 

I always bring up Aphex Twin music as a good example of what I would do for visual art. Although he’s a musician, he’s also an artist who creates art that is emotional and experimental at the same time. I found it to be very challenging to achieve something like that. So, I’ve been trying to do that with my bird videos. 

IZ: What did you create this series on, which programs were used? 

YS: I’ve built a framework in After Effects. I use a lot of Expressions which is almost as same as Javascript inside the program. I use it to randomize a lot of elements for the videos. For example, it determines the number of birds, camera movement, the position of the sun, density of the graphic shapes etc etc. 

IZ: How was the music created for the series, and what atmosphere is intended through its use? From listening I can discern a natural foley recorded backdrop, a vibrating tone, and then a final solid tone before repeating, could you speak about this segmentation and why it aligns with certain video sections? 

YS: Each layer has its frequency. In real life being outside, you are always surrounded by some kind of white noise. So, that’s what you hear when there’s no graphic overlay. Then you hear some computer-generated sounds when those vector shapes come in. Each one is randomized and with different modulation effects.

It’s important to have a sense of rhythm in my videos. Everything is cut in 0.5-second intervals. I have a music background. So that’s why I edit the way I make my videos. I would like those videos to have a similar sensation when you listen to music, has to be rhythmic.

IZ: In terms of experience for video works which are looped, the inclusion of music is not always practical in a casual living scenario when displaying a piece - could you speak a bit about how you view this situation and about how you’d want viewers to experience the works? 

YS: I’m not worried about how people might want to display my videos honestly. I’m just focused on making a piece of short video art that makes sense. I take a lot hint from filmmaking. Although my videos aren’t 2 hours long, it still has a sense of storyline and flow. So this is pretty different from abstract generative art. 

IZ: Are there any relations to “The Flood”, your 2023 series on Verse, which you feel tie to “The Swarm”? 

YS: Yes, 100%. They are both about how those creatures behave in nature in an imaginary way. 

IZ: At this point in your artistic journey, you’ve been making art for a few decades alongside doing commissioned work as well. How do you view working on your personal works now compared to a few years ago, which theme’s are you more interested in exploring now? Has your process changed lately in how you make art?

YS: My process has always been the same. And I’ve always treated my commissions as art projects anyway. I’ve been lucky to have been trusted to come up with my ideas for those projects. But I have to say after I started to focus on these simulation videos, it seemed to have reached whole new audiences. That was a nice but a big surprise. But I am still not that savvy with social media. So, this success was not calculated or planned. I’ve never paid to boost my post or anyone to help me gain my followers. Buying my audience is something I’m never interested in. 

IZ: This is a series which has received quite a lot of praise on social media and an immense amount of viewership, how does this make you feel in general? Is this your most “viral” series? You’ve also had work alongside massive music tour’s where many people were in attendance, how do these sensations differ in viewership? 

YS: It makes me happy for sure. But I try to stay low-key about it. At the end of the day, those social media platforms are run by companies for profit, which means they could disappear one day. They don’t care about us. So, it’s best to just focus on my work and keep making stuff I believe in. I’ve been making video art before YouTube existed. So, the social media success is great but not eternal. 

And those works I’ve done big acts like Metallica or Tame Impala, those were amazing projects on their own. It’s amazing to think that my art has been seen by millions of audiences that way. But at the same time, my contribution is just a small part of their huge projects. So it’s no big deal! 

IZ: Is there any relation due to the environments rotating, to almost allude to a VR type of sensation? 

YS: Not exactly. I have never been a big fan of VR technology. I just find it pretty awkward. So, there’s no influences from it in my work. 

IZ: The green-screen section is really intriguing to me and feels quite iconic. It captures the sensation of free-spirited-ness, the ability to fly away most literally and figuratively to change one’s environment, but then the video most literally loops and sets the birds within a routine. Is this an analogy to real life? Our urges to break free from our normalcy, to acknowledge our assortment of choice in decisions, but to play it safe?

YS: That’s a great observation! 

My inspiration comes from these. Because some people seem to think those animations are from real footage, I wanted to show that these are not real. I don’t mean to fool anyone. I would like people to know that these are not real. I’m just expressing myself with computer animations. So adding the section with green screen one way to tell that. Also, in some of my videos, I put a Media Offline screen. That is sort of like my idea of meme!