HIROSHI ISHII, Founder Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab, on The Zen of HCI

ValleyZen’s Bill and Drue spoke with Prof. Hiroshi Ishii after his Stanford lecture for Prof. Terry Winograd’s CS Human-Computer Interaction Seminar. Ishii granted ValleyZen an exciting satori-inducing interview at Drue’s studio. Watch the video here or embedded below.

Japanese Zen aesthetics are interwoven in all of Prof. Ishii’s technological creations and projects. In the video check out Prof Ishii on:

• The Zen of Human Computer Interaction
• Emptiness and imagination
• Negative Space and “Ghostly Presence”
• Essence of Japanese Art
• Importance of leaving space
• The “What drives creation?” pyramid
• Drue’s “Around the World” Enso
• Blurring Boundaries between our bodies and cyberspace

Professor Hiroshi Ishii is reconciling our dual citizenship in the worlds of bits and atoms. The founder of the Tangible Media Group and professor of Media Arts & Sciences at the MIT Media Laboratory is transforming “painted bits” of GUIs to “tangible bits” by giving tangible physical form to digital information and computation. This is no easy task, but no one could be more suited for this demanding work than Ishii. He is an ambassador between physical and digital worlds continually traveling back and forth to create bridges of meaning, beauty and functionality.

Bill Fenwick & Drue Kataoka