Mentalmodel Design & Engineering.

Designing and implementing the cognitive worlds of people

Genta G.’s icon

Genta G.

I'm drawn to where technology meets culture: speculative fiction and human-computer interaction, people themselves and the things they make, and where all of it is heading.
I design from people's mental models, and I build what I design.

  • Cyber Interface Lab — M2, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo (Kuzuoka, Tanikawa & Narumi Lab)
  • @UT_virtual — The University of Tokyo Virtual Reality Club

Works

52 projects

Featured Works Selected work

2025.07.04 – 07.07

The You You Are — a payphone to your self in another world

WIRED CREATIVE HACK AWARD 2025 — Young Creator Award +4 more

A payphone where "you, in another world" talks to you in your own voice, using voice cloning and generative AI. I led the experience design, technology choices and overall direction. Shown at the University of Tokyo exhibition 2025 "Beginning".

  • Direction
  • Programming
  • Generative AI
  • +3
2025.04.29

Bubble-UI: A Fatigue-Reducing and User-Friendly Spatial UI System Using a Soap Bubble Metaphor

ACM CHI 2025 Late-Breaking Work (acceptance rate 32.83%)

A poster at CHI on Bubble-UI — using soap bubbles as the UI metaphor in XR to reduce fatigue and speed up input.

  • Paper
  • Lead author
  • UI
  • +1
2025.01.11

Keita Watanabe Lab exhibition "Toward Ultra-Light Industry"

For the lab's exhibition built around a talk event, I led the overall planning, spatial design and creative direction.

  • Spatial design
  • Concept
  • Events
  • +1
2024.11.24

UT-virtual club magazine "Mehou" vol. 2

The club's fourth magazine. Members' own discoveries from their activities, in forms ranging from essays to fiction.

  • Concept
  • Direction
  • Project management
  • +4
2024.08.03 – 08.04

Watanabe Lab Open Campus 2024

Planned, ran, directed and laid out the lab's exhibit at Meiji University's open campus.

  • Spatial design
  • Direction
  • Solution selection
  • +2
2024.06.28

WIRED Vol.53 — research and some of the writing

Research and part of the text for the "Spatial computing is everywhere" pages of the Spatial Computing issue.

  • Research
  • Writing
2024.03.12

"Momotaro's Job Hunt, Class of '64" — an SF prototyping app

Theme: job hunting in 2064. An interactive web app for speculative-fiction prototyping together with AI.

  • Generative AI
  • Web service
  • Concept
  • +5
2024.02.11

Bubble-UI: A Spatial UI System Using a Soap Bubble Metaphor

Interaction 2024 — Interactive Presentation Award (audience vote)

Research on soap bubbles as a UI metaphor. A UI system that makes use of what the digital world allows beyond physics, while keeping operations easy for users to predict.

  • Paper
  • Lead author
  • UI
  • +3
2023.11.24

UT-virtual club magazine "Mehou"

Made as part of the newly founded Media Expression Group. Members' own discoveries from their activities, in forms ranging from essays to fiction.

  • Concept
  • Direction
  • Project management
  • +3
2023.11.24

UT-virtual club magazine "meta space"

A club magazine on the theme of the "metaverse", distributed at the Komaba Festival. I oversaw everything from the editorial direction to the page design.

  • DTP
  • Visual design
  • Project management
  • +1
2023.10.16 – 10.24

"Flow" — shown at Tokyo Polytechnic University's exhibition "Utsuru"

An interactive VR piece where you shape space-enveloping effects with hand tracking. Exhibited for a week at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

  • VR
  • Programming
  • Visual design
  • +2
2023.07.20

"MindLink"

Imagining a product Google might release in 2035 — a service that reads brainwaves and puts them into words with an LLM.

  • Video prototyping
  • Filming
  • Colour grading
  • +3
2023.06.02

The Cable Puller

From the unconscious habit of keeping a cable on the desk so it doesn't slip to the floor ("Without Thought"), I imagined a statue-like weight that holds the cable as if in a tug of war.

  • Solo
  • Concept
  • Product design
  • +2
2023.05.12

"Release Tension" Resistance and click feel from a button press

A demo that creates pseudo-haptics with a button. Pressing stops partway; releasing makes it snap through — recreating a click.

  • Programming
  • Visual design
  • Poster
  • +4
2023.04.01

UT-virtual new logo (rebranding)

Five years after its founding, the club had changed in direction and membership; the rebrand keeps the culture that has been handed down while reflecting that change.

  • Concept
  • Direction
  • Visual design
  • +1
2023.04.01

UT-virtual recruitment signboard

  • Visual design
  • Poster
  • Solo
2023.01.18

Web service for cafeteria signage

A group project: a service for the menu signage used in a university cafeteria. I handled planning, team management, introducing Git, visual design and CSS.

  • Web service
  • Concept
  • Team project
  • +2
2022.06.29

UT-virtual business card 2022

Proposed and made a redesign of the club's existing card, for better legibility and a design suited to its purpose.

  • DTP
  • Visual design
  • Concept
  • +1
2022.06.25

"Body as a Prototype"

A video prototype of a system that measures objects with hand tracking, calculating from the hand's pre-measured size.

  • Video prototyping
  • Solo
  • UI
2022.06.04

"Sci-fi Cityscapes"

A short film that picks out the science-fiction details scattered across a real city.

  • Film
  • Filming
  • Colour grading
  • +3
2022.01.31 – 02.06

Shinjuku illusion 3D billboard vol. 2

The second illusion 3D ad — 3D from one viewpoint — for the giant screen famous for the "Shinjuku cat". This time a team split the roles; I did the 3DCG.

  • Outdoor ad
  • 3DCG
  • Team project
  • +2
2022.01.17

Self-driving disinfectant sprayer "Shodoku-kun"

A rover steered with a smartphone's gyroscope, with live camera view and a disinfectant spray. I handled the system architecture, UI design and the code relaying the camera feed.

  • Programming
  • UI
  • Filming
  • +4
2021.08.02 – 08.08

Shinjuku illusion 3D billboard vol. 1

An illusion 3D ad — 3D from one viewpoint — for the giant screen famous for the "Shinjuku cat". I did everything through to the final delivery myself.

  • Outdoor ad
  • 3DCG
  • Solo
  • +1
2020.06.10

Mateba 2006M Revolver FANART (for Realtime)

A real-time 3D model based on the Mateba 2006M, modelled in Blender and textured in Substance Painter. 2,840 polygons, 2K textures

  • Modelling
  • 3DCG
  • Solo

Other Works More work

Skills

Across 52 projects

Tech Stacks

Strong

Blender · Photoshop · DB設計 · GitHub · デジタル一眼 (SIGMA fp) · Google App Script · Processing · CSS

Experienced

Substance Painter · WordPress · OpenXR · Leap Motion · コンデンサマイク · Audacity · InDesign · Unity · Illustrator

18 more
Tried

Next.js · SQLite3 · VFX Graph · Figma · midjourney

Other

Prural Eyes · ビデオライト · ChatGPT · Affinity Designer · Affinity Publisher · Android · Arduino · Raspberry Pi · HSP · Javascript · HTML · PHP · visionOS

Career

Education

  1. Tokyo City University Junior & Senior High School

    2015 – 2021

    Multimedia Research Club 2015 – 2021

    • A club for making things with computers; I was in the programming group.
  2. Meiji University, School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences, Department of Frontier Media Science

    2021 – 2025

    Keita Watanabe Lab — Interaction Design Laboratory 2022.4 – 2025.3

    • An interaction design lab. Research on XR user interfaces, the haptic VR device "TeleStick", and the sense of agency.

    Related workBubble-UI: A Spatial UI System Using a Soap Bubble Metaphor

  3. The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, Emerging Design and Informatics Course

    2025 – present

    Kuzuoka, Narumi & Tanikawa Lab — Cyber Interface Lab 2025.4 – present

    • A lab working on VR, cognition and communication. Research on LLM-mediated communication within groups and behaviour change.

Internship

  1. MyDearest Inc.VR game studio

    2022.8 – 2023.111 yr 4 mo

    Eleven months as a support game designer on the VR adventure game "Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate", then five months as a server-side engineer on the VR battle game "BlazenBraze".

    Support game designer 2022.8 – 2023.6

    • Implementation in Unity, placing some of the background characters, choosing voices, and debugging.

    Related workDyschronia: Chronos Alternate — support game designer

    Server-side engineer 2023.7 – 2023.11

    • From API definitions to database design for a distributed DB, developing with Docker and Go.
  2. WIRED Japan, editorial team (Condé Nast Japan)Technology media

    Current2024.4 – present

    Research and some of the writing for the Spatial Computing issue, social media content, event support and office work.

    Editorial assistant 2024.4 – 7月

    • Research and some of the writing for the Spatial Computing issue, plus office work.

    Related workWIRED Vol.53 — research and writing

    Editorial assistant 2024.7 – present

    • Event support and content for social media.
  3. Trash Lens Inc.Environmental start-up

    Current2024.6 – present

    Product development for "Trash Lens", an app that tells you how to sort any piece of rubbish in three seconds from a photo. As a core member: UX design, app development, LLM-based automation and promotion planning.

    Software engineer 2024.6 – present

  4. BASSDRUM inc.Technical direction

    Current2025.2 – present

    A technical direction company that understands both "creative" and "technology" and works between them. Technology research and building in-house productivity software.

    Part-time 2025.2 – present

  5. Mogura Inc. (Mogura NEXT)Development arm of a VR media company

    2025.11 – 2026.1

    "Mogura NEXT" is a development service specialising in AR, VR and VTubers. 3D modelling for business services.

    3D modelling (part-time) 2025.11 – 2026.1

  6. TENT's TEMPODesign store

    Current2025.11 – present

    The store of TENT, a product design studio.

    Shop staff 2026.5 – present

Circle

  1. UT-virtual — The University of Tokyo VR ClubIntercollegiate VR club at the University of Tokyo

    Current2021 – present

    An intercollegiate virtual reality club at the University of Tokyo with over 100 students from across Japan. As vice president in 2023, I worked on restructuring the organisation and on its rebranding.

    Vice president 2023年度

    • Working groups: small groups by interest, each with a leader, decision rights and a budget — a more decentralised structure that scales.
    • Rebranding and outreach: a visual identity and publicity that convey what makes the club fun, reaching not only core VR fans but anyone who might become interested.
    • Documentation and automation: since most organisers and members change every year, documentation and automation to keep hand-over work to a minimum.

Certifications

English

  • TOEIC L&R 840 (2024/02/25)
  • EIKEN Grade Pre-1 (2020/08/28)

Personal Interests

Technology and science fiction

  • Reading WIRED, TechnoEdge, Bijutsu Techo, The Verge, GIGAZINE, IGN, AUTOMATON, MoguraVR News, etc.
  • Museums I enjoy the exhibitions, but also watching the spatial design, the visitor flow and how people react.
    Miraikan, National Museum of Nature and Science, Ginza Sony Park, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Taro Okamoto Museum of Art Kawasaki
  • Games Garage: Bad Dream Adventure, DEATH STRANDING, Persona 5, Fallout 4, Dishonored, BioShock Infinite, NieR, Watch Dogs, Steins;Gate (Steam)
  • Photography and film I like making media in many formats — photographs, video, zines.
    SIGMA fp + Voigtländer ULTRON 35mm F2
  • Films I saw recently Conclave, Taroman: The Movie, Don't Look Up, The Orbital Children, TENET, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0
  • Anime Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C., Eden of the East, Dennō Coil, Made in Abyss, The Orbital Children, Guilty Crown, PSYCHO-PASS
  • Building my own PCs
  • VR Virtual Virtual Reality, Resident Evil Village VR, Half-Life: Alyx
  • Immersive experiences Anagura no Uta (Miraikan)