A pioneer of internet-based digital art, Yoshi Sodeoka will be this year’s headliner at the new media art festival, Kinomural. Just a few months ago, the artist held a multimedia exhibition on 95 screens in Times Square, and this September he will travel to Poland for the first time to present his work in Wrocław.
“Seeing my work on such a massive scale – like in Times Square – completely changes the perspective. You feel the sound, you feel the color. It’s no longer just a screen; it becomes part of the environment. That experience made me more sensitive to spatial composition, rhythm, and how people physically encounter the work. Kinomural expands on that powerfully. It embeds moving images directly into the fabric of the city, where buildings become canvases, and the audience becomes part of the flow. I can’t wait to see how my work lives in that context – outdoors, unexpected, woven into daily life. It’s familiar, yet still full of surprises,” says Yoshi.
Yoshi Sodeoka. A Pioneer of Internet-Based Digital Art
Sodeoka is known for his innovative exploration of various media and platforms – including video, gifs, and print. Deeply passionate about music, his neo-psychedelic style directly reflects his love and experience in the field. Drawing inspiration from genres such as noise, punk, metal, and prog rock, Sodeoka has developed a unique artistic vision marked by complex and consciousness-altering visualizations.
“My work has always revolved around experimentation – whether through real-time simulations like SWARM or abstract video feedback like GARLANDS. I’ve tried to push the boundaries of what digital tools can do, while also showing that you don’t need big budgets or elaborate installations to create something expressive, immersive, or emotionally resonant. Kinomural is a powerful platform for that mindset. It gives artists a rare opportunity to scale their work to the size of buildings – to see how it breathes in public space, how it interacts with architecture and people walking by. That kind of visibility can inspire new directions, new ideas, and a deeper connection between the artist and the environment”, he adds.
In the mid-1990s, Sodeoka became the art director of Word Magazine, one of the first multimedia online magazines that helped shape digital visual culture. He has collaborated with iconic musicians, creating music videos and visuals for artists like Metallica, Tame Impala, Oneohtrix Point Never, Max Cooper, Yeasayer, and The Presets. His style fuses glitch aesthetics with a strong sound layer. His works have been featured at prestigious institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Tate Britain, Whitney Museum, MoMA New York, and SFMOMA. His pieces are also part of permanent collections at the Museum of the Moving Image and SFMOMA.
Yoshi Sodeoka at Kinomural – What to Expect?
Especially for the festival, the artist has prepared a two-day program. On the first evening (September 19), audiences will experience the generative video project SWARM, which presents bird murmurations as both a natural spectacle and a data system. Based on flocking algorithm simulations, the visualization combines a series of schematic elements—vector arrows, red tracking dots, neon green fields, and line graphs indicating speed and direction. These layers attempt to decode the secret of coordinated movement through the visual language of computational logic. The viewer’s experience oscillates between extremes: moments of dizzying complexity alternate with stillness and calm. SWARM is a meditation on perception—both human and artificial—and the tensions between wild behavior and pure analysis.