Ayumu Nagamatsu・Chih-Yu Chen《dialog() 2025》

About "PERSON"

Shibuya PARCO held its new program "SHIBUYA PARCO 'PERSON'" for ten days, from Friday, March 13 to Sunday, March 22, 2026. Built around the theme of "people," the program looked at individuals, communities, and what people create from a range of angles, exploring them through events and interviews. The music playing throughout the building was Ryuichi Sakamoto's, with playlists curated by selectors chosen by The Estate of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Naohiro Ukawa for March and Towa Tei for April. Alongside this, SUPER DOMMUNE broadcast a special program on Ryuichi Sakamoto, "PERSON SPECIAL PROGRAM," on March 16.

From dialog() to Silver Trail, and on to PERSON

The work chosen as PERSON's key visual came from "Silver Trail -dialog() spinoff-," a group exhibition held at NEORT++ (Bakurocho, Tokyo) in July 2025. That work has a longer history behind it. In 2024, the generative art exhibition "dialog()" toured four cities — Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, and Beijing — bringing together a total of forty artists from these cities to explore the expressive possibilities of algorithms. NEORT and JGAF ran the Tokyo venue, and Volume DAO ran the Taipei venue. Ayumu Nagamatsu (Tokyo) and Chih-Yu Chen (Taipei) both took part in dialog(). The following year, in 2025, the two carried the spirit of dialog() forward into "Silver Trail," a collaborative exhibition pairing one artist each from Japan and Taiwan, staged at NEORT++. The work born from that collaboration, "dialog() 2025," is now the key visual for PERSON in 2026. A dialogue that began with a touring exhibition, passed through a collaboration at NEORT++, and has now surfaced on a street corner in Shibuya.

The two artists behind Silver Trail

"Silver Trail -dialog() spinoff-" brought together Chih-Yu Chen (known as CYC), a Taiwanese generative artist who explores, through algorithms, the fluid relationship between simulated reality and poetic expression, and Ayumu Nagamatsu, a Japanese generative artist who has worked on both the practical application and the theoretical consideration of generative expression through programming. The exhibition's core lay in the dialogue between these two artists from different backgrounds, each stimulating the other's creativity.

Daily dialogue, built up on GitHub

The two artists' collaboration took place in a GitHub repository, "Dialogue2025." Work began on June 10, 2025, centered on visuals built with p5.js and shaders (uniform.frag / uniform.vert), with comments and commit messages carrying the conversation beyond the code itself. The repository set out three rules: "Complete Freedom," under which either artist could freely modify or delete the other's code; "One Per Day," a self-imposed discipline of committing daily; and "Messages as Art," treating commit messages and the words exchanged in "dialogue.md" as part of the work itself. Even the smallest change was considered worthwhile, with the aim of never letting a day's progress lapse. The two said this daily record drew inspiration from the book Dear Data, which visualizes data through hand-drawn diagrams, and from their experience the previous year with dialog(). The exchange of words that built up alongside the evolving code is visualized on GitHub as the creative trail leading to the completed work, "dialog() 2025."

Working with Volume DAO, and the name "Silver Trail"

The exhibition also marked a further step in the collaboration between Volume DAO, a Taiwanese creative collective, and NEORT++. Volume DAO was founded in Taiwan at the end of 2021 as a group of creators, curators, and collectors working in art NFTs, and has worked to bridge Web2 and Web3, decentralized networks and art, and the virtual and physical worlds. Of the exhibition, born from dialog()'s Asia-wide network, the official site describes it as presenting "a new model for co-creating digital art across geographic and cultural distance." The title "Silver Trail" evokes a path lit by moonlight, expressing a hope that the gentle but steady dialogue and creative work among artists across borders will continue.

Artists

Ayumu Nagamatsu

His work is inspired by his interest in the intersection of styles, methodologies, and history of generative art, data-driven art, visual music, etc. As a freelance programmer and artist, he is well versed in multiple digital software programs.
https://twitter.com/ayumu_naga

Chih-Yu Chen

Chih-Yu Chen is a Taiwan-based artist. She utilizes computational algorithms to recreate life experiences through chance variables. Her work spans generative art and interactive design. At this stage, she explores the flow between simulating reality and poetic expressions.
https://x.com/chihyu_chen_

Disclosure

This article is based on NEORT's public information and internal records; an AI-written draft was structured and edited by our editorial team.