Masaki Fujihata and Kei'ichi Irie in a
conversation about the miracle of remote control,
the change of reality through new technologies,
about architecture as a mirror of the times,
Japanese household appliances,
about a TV-set which turns into a rice cooker
and about the fact that finally the fixation
on the real object will become less significant
- the interfaces between things
will be the centre of attention.

---

Masaki Fujihata / Kei'ichi Irie

REMOVEABLE REALITY

Excerpts from a dialogue:

IRIE: We seem to be in the habit of grasping the world three-dimensionally. So when we think about media in relation to us, say, we see it in terms of a three-diimensional model: we're floating in this city space, enveloped in this permable membrane upon which various information is projected. An image of media-as-membrane. But that schema is wrong. And as long as we're struck on that schema, we'll never get beyond this floating nomadic giddiness. No, in order for us to shift our consciousness over the reality of all theses diverse media that impinge upon us, we have to write in another schema to replace the three-dimensional one.

That seems to be our basic task. As guidelines for this re-writing, let's consider three simple spaces. First, very realistic physical space. Second, not physical space, but nonetheless one in which we customarily move, systematic space. And third, another type of space altogether, the space created by telecommunications. Therein, all the old worn-out models we've used to discuss the world no longer hold; it takes a different model. Which might be something that people involved in programming and other advanced work sense as their reality. At least I think we are going to start to see one common line of exploration emerging here. Which means, such a reality currently exists in a scattered state, but has yet to be rendered into a model.

FUJIHATA: About this third space, say someone who's into mathematics, who has only to look at an equation to see an image of what it means, that sort of conceptual realm might in one sense be very close, and indeed may well become much more immediate to our experience through the evolution of technology. Extremely so with computer technology. It might be worthwhile to put forth a manifestation on this space that had previously been invisible but is now coming into view.