Forging Ahead into the Future - Daito Manabe, Programmer/Artist

He has amazed the world with creative endeavors across a stunning range of media and venues: figure skating exhibitions, concerts for pop supergroup Perfume, video for Tokyo's 2020 Olympic bid, high-profile TV commercials and much more. He is Daito Manabe, and his philosophy for creative expression is extremely simple: Do stuff nobody else does. With any project Manabe is involved in, he will expend every ounce of energy he has to bring forth something no one has ever achieved before. Manabe says of himself, "I have a tendency to avoid things that other people are likely to be trying. I want to do one-of-a-kind work. That's the value I have. That leads to really terrible cost-performance, which makes things hard. I always think about what I'll be doing in 3 years, when anyone can do this and it's not special. I guess that's a factor in being able to keep creating new things".
To help him create the kinds of spectacles that no one has seen before, once a week Manabe visits a university research lab or company to check out state-of-the-art devices and materials. He is also very interested in historical forms of expression - for example, how technology has been incorporated into dance performances in various eras. He has posted the results of his historical explorations, stretching all the way back to the 17th century, on a website. Keenly interested in the very latest innovations and the trends of bygone eras, Manabe believes that engaging with both of them, day in and day out, gives him the inspiration to create new things.