１９８７年東京生まれ。東京大学大学院学際情報学府博士課程を飛び級で修了し、２０１５年より筑波大学に着任。コンピュータとアナログなテクノロジーを組み合わせ、新しい作品を次々と生み出し「現代の魔法使い」と称される。
研究室ではデジタルとアナログ、リアルとバーチャルの区別を越えた新たな人間と計算機の関係性である「デジタルネイチャー」を目指し研究に従事している。
音響浮揚の計算機制御によるグラフィクス形成技術「ピクシーダスト」が経済産業省「Innovative Technologies賞」受賞，その他国内外で受賞多数。
Yoichi Ochiai, media artist and assistant professor of Tsukuba University, was born in 1987 in Tokyo. He has a PhD in Interdisciplinary Information Studies, from the University of Tokyo. He has been an assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba since 2015. People call him a “wizard” because of his work creating a lot of products composed of digital and analogue technologies.
He works on new inventions and research through a mixture of applied physics, computer science, and art. He has received the Innovative Technologies Prize from METI, the World Technology Award from Fortune, and many more. His group, the Digital Nature Group, envisions the idea of
“Digital Nature” which is a new combination of human and digital resources beyond borders existing between digital and analogue, real and virtual.
