Yoshi Sodeoka: Living in the Blur

The works of Yoshi Sodeoka are a kind of guide on how to create art that not only captures the screen but also exists everywhere and anywhere. As a Japanese digital artist and multimedia experimenter, he treats the glitch as just another shade in his palette. His worlds unfold in colliding spirals and shifting avatars, carrying a sensibility rooted in his beginnings as an oil painter, where time is blurred and duration stretched. Speaking with hube, Sodeoka unravels warped timelines, speculative futures, digital mystique, and the vanishing line between life on- and offline.

hube: Your work often evokes something simultaneously ancient and futuristic, like digital fossils from a parallel timeline. When you lean into the organic, are you conjuring lost histories, speculative futures, or something beyond the linear concept of time?

Yoshi Sodeoka: I like the idea that what seems ancient might be ahead of us, and what feels futuristic might already be buried. The work lives in that blur.

 h: You’ve been engaging with digital tools since long before the current wave of generative AI. Do you feel that the rapid accessibility of these tools democratizes creativity or dilutes it?

YS: I don’t really see it as democratization or dilution, more like acceleration. The tools are everywhere now, but what matters is how you tune them, how you shape a language that doesn’t feel generic. My position hasn’t really changed; I just keep following the line I’ve been pulling on for decades.

 h: There’s a strong pull toward digital surrealism in today’s visual culture. Why do you think these hyper-synthetic dreamscapes resonate so deeply right now?

YS: I think people are hungry for mystery in a time when almost everything feels mapped and explained. The synthetic dreamscapes work because they suggest something that can’t be fully decoded; an image that resists clarity.

 h: Your visuals often feel like visualizations of sound, as if they hum or pulse on their own. How has your relationship with music shaped your sense of rhythm, composition, or texture in digital space?

YS: Music taught me that texture can be as powerful as form. In the visuals, I’m often chasing that same density you find in sound, layers colliding, dissolving, vibrating against each other.

h: Some of your works feel almost meditative, others more abrasive. Is that tension something you actively seek?

YS: That’s a good observation, thank you. It comes naturally. I think it reflects my taste in sound—I’m drawn to both the quiet and the abrasive, and those opposites coexist in a way that feels natural to me.

h: Having collaborated with major brands and institutions, how do you navigate the space between artistic autonomy and commercial demand?

YS: I try not to see it as autonomy versus demand. A framework, even a commercial one, can create unexpected freedom; it forces you to respond, to bend, and sometimes that generates ideas I wouldn’t have found on my own. The key is keeping a thread of my own language intact within whatever context I’m working in.

 h: With digital identities becoming more fluid—avatars, filters, generative personas—do you think the self is becoming a design project?

YS: I don’t see much difference between life and the screen. Both are spaces where we compose and recombine ourselves; maybe what’s new is that the masks are more obvious, but also more accepted.

 h: You came up in a time when internet culture was more chaotic, raw, and experimental. Do you think we’ve lost something essential in today’s hyper-curated, algorithm-driven digital spaces?

YS: I don’t think that spirit is gone. It’s just buried under layers of curation and algorithms. The rawness leaks through in unexpected ways, and maybe it will re-emerge in forms we haven’t imagined yet.

 h: As someone who’s been present through multiple phases of online culture, how do you imagine the next evolution of the internet?

YS: Each phase of the internet has shifted from openness, to control, to something in between. I think the next evolution will blur further with daily life, until the distinction between online and offline stops making sense.

 h: Are there any emerging digital artists that you’re currently watching?

YS: I can’t pick just a few names since there are so many. What I find interesting is how the digital art space keeps expanding across both social media and physical venues. I pay attention to artists who move through those spaces almost unconsciously, without worrying about the boundaries.

 h: If you had to describe the future in five words, what would they be?

YS: Noise, silence, signal, echo, drift.