Update:April 12, 2024

COUGEN Project

"COUGEN Project" is the collective name of a host of sound and light synchronisation development and demonstration activities performed by Crypton Future Media Inc. (creator of world-renowned character Hatsune Miku).

Semi-electrified directonS

Responding to changes in the positions of bodies, this piece expresses the release of energy through catabolism (the biological process of breaking down complex substances into simpler ones to extract energy) with directionality, using the sound that corresponds to the changes and directionality of fingers that are already supposed to be fixed.

Inspired by the Sosegawa River, which branches off from the grid city of Sapporo, flowing east to west, this work was created with the image of vertically reflecting the Sosegawa River as a source of creative city power that will lead to a directional future.

• Event period: March 2^nd 2024, 18:00-20:00
• Location: Soseigawa Park Tanuki 2-jo Square

Sapporo Snow Festival 2023

Two COUGEN Project initiatives could be seen and experienced at the world-renowned Sapporo Snow Festival 2023.

Ice Instruments

Instruments made seemingly entirely out of ice (marimba, timpani) could be played freely by visitors to the festival, reverberating a large electronically generated sound throughout the vicinity. What made this a once-in-a-lifetime experience was that when the instruments were hit, the Sapporo TV Tower was illuminated in a multitude of colours in synchronisation with the sounds.

A special demonstration performance entitled "Interplay: Partita for the Polygonal Lighting Synthesiser and Ice Marimba" was also held by professional musicians Ryohei Terada, Saiichi Mitsuyu, and Junichi Oguro. A total of 868 people played the instruments over the festival period.

• Event period: 4^th – 11^th Feb 2023, 17:00 – 19:30
• Location: Sapporo Snow Festival Odori Site 2-chome (Odori Park Nishi 2-chome)

Snow Miku 2023

Hatsune Miku is the most famous mascot character of Crypton’s voicebank software series VOCALOID, and given that the company hails from Sapporo, she is also an important representative of the city and of the wider region of Hokkaido.

The Snow Miku initiative, which has taken place annually since 2010, sees the creation of a new snow-themed version of the character each year followed by a large-scale snow sculpture at the festival.

In 2023, COUGEN Project joined forces with Snow Miku to hold a special light and sound show, bringing the sculpture to life with illumination effects synchronised with this year’s theme song "SnowMix♪"

Event period: 4^th – 11^th Feb 2023, 17:55 – 22:00 (five-minute shows every 25 and 55 minutes past the hour)

Location: Sapporo Snow Festival Odori Site 2-chome (Odori Park Nishi 2-chome)

Fifteen-second Media Art Special Effects Event (2021)

An immersive event to mark 50 years since Sapporo was designated host city of the Winter Olympics in 1972. Special effects were utilised to create a feature video in which a ski jumper leapt from Sapporo’s Okurayama Ski Jump Stadium to Odori Park in 15 seconds – an impossible feat in reality, given the distance of 4,321 km which would require the athlete to fly through the air at 1,566 km/hour.

The event was held at Odori Park with a wall of illuminated blocks synchronised with the sound of the video. Eventgoers could view the special effects video from their smartphones in real time and in order to make the experience feel authentic, fireworks were set off and a ski jumper crashed through the illuminated blocks in real life at the same time as the video.

Date: 12^th Dec 2021 (illuminations began at 19:30, ski jump event at 20:30)

Location: Odori Park 11-chome temporary venue