Goro Fujita

Critics say virtual reality is a niche concept that’s yet to find its feet. Gary Evans meets the Japanese artist who wants to prove them very, very wrong.

Goro Fujita recently went to a dinner party with friends in Pasadena, California. After the meal, a group of guests got out their musical instruments and started to play: a guitarist, a man on piano in the corner, another plucking a double bass, and a drummer beating a drum box with his hands.

Goro wanted to join in. So he opened his laptop, put on his virtual reality headset, and slipped a controller on each hand. While the musicians played, he painted and animated them using Quill, the virtual reality illustration software.

“It was a meta-moment for me,” Goro says. “I was painting and animating them while listening to their live performance. At one point, I imagined the animated characters were playing the music! It’s crazy to think how far technology has come that it enables artists to create animated pieces in almost real time.“

It’s a good story, but is it anything more than that? Goro’s worked on many successful animated movies that didn’t use VR. The technology’s been available for some time and while some say it’s the future of digital art, critics still regard it as a niche concept. What can this tool do for art that couldn’t already be achieved? This is the problem that Goro faces every day: “Whenever I design a VR experience the most important question I ask myself is, ‘Why VR?’”

ALIEN INSPIRATION