Toshio Iwai is a Japanese interactive media and installation artist who has also created a number of commercial video games. In addition he has worked in television, music performance, museum design and digital musical instrument design.
In 1985, while Iwai was still a student, his installation Time Stratum won the High Technology Art Exhibition Gold prize. He also won the grand prize at the 17th annual Modern Japanese Art Awards, becoming the youngest artist ever to win the award. In 1987, following the completion of his work at Tsukuba University's Plastic Art and Mixed Media master's course, he went on to exhibit his interactive art at shows both in Japan and overseas, winning wide acclaim.
In 1987 he graduated from the Plastic Art and Mixed Media master's course of the University of Tsukuba, Japan and in 1992 he finished the Artist-in-Residence Program at the Exploratorium, San Francisco. His pieces Well of Lights and Music Insects are now in the permanent collection of the Exploratorium.
His works were displayed at the Seville EXPO in 1992 in Spain, at the EC Japan Fest in 1993 in Antwerp, Belgium, at the Biennale d�rt contemporain de Lyon in 1995, at the Mediascape Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1996, and at the G7 Summit Exhibition in Lyon in 1997.
Iwai is a multitalented creator whose works also include the creation of characters and computer graphic designs for Fuji Televisions, "Einstein TV" and "Ugo Ugo Lhuga" TV programs, as well as computer game software.
(http://itp.nyu.edu/~an725/AYA/itp/videoart/presentation/index.html)
In 1996 Iwai published a Windows CD-ROM "Simtunes" in the United States, issued in Japanese, German and French editions. He has also been active in many locations overseas. In 1991-92, he was based at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In 1994-95, he was a visiting artist at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, where his work included a major one-man show.