A still from the animation City Glow by Chiho Aoshima in collaboration with Bruce Ferguson. Picture / Kaikai Kiki Co

A still from the animation City Glow by Chiho Aoshima in collaboration with Bruce Ferguson. Picture / Kaikai Kiki Co

Despite coming from such a small and remote homeland, New Zealanders still manage to find their way into influential positions around the world.

So it shouldn't be surprising to find the cellphone number of one of Japan's most famous artists, Takashi Murakami, in the address book of Auckland musician Bruce Ferguson, who plays in a rock group named the Sorecocks.

Despite his casual appearance, often showing up to official engagements in shorts or bare feet, Murakami, 44 is an influential figure at the centre of an impressive creative empire. His Kaikai Kiki company employs 60 people in Tokyo to produce his range of works, while an office in New York is his portal to the outside world.

Like earlier pop artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Billy Apple, Murakami's work is a response to mass-produced consumerism and pop culture, with a particular interest in the super-cute cartoon imagery popular in Japan.

Warhol and his fellow pop artists once held an exhibition in a supermarket and began hiring assistants and sub-contractors to create their work for them as a critique of art's role in a commercial marketplace.

Murakami's corporate approach is more an acceptance and celebration of commerce and marketing, with items such as bubble gum selling for as little as a few dollars while a statue can sell for more than a million.

Murakami's celebrity status went stellar when he began providing designs for Louis Vuitton handbags and other merchandise, one of their most popular and exclusive ranges. It was this relationship that brought him into contact with Bruce Ferguson.

Ferguson's background is in electronic music and he organised dance parties with friends as Auckland's rave scene emerged in the late-90s. This led to an involvement with the Kog multimedia collective, who continue to run recording studios and a record label from a converted Kingsland flat.

In 1998 Kog acquired a video editing system. Ferguson, having discovered he could edit video in the same way as audio, dived headlong into the new world of VJing.

A recommendation from live video expert Mike Hodgson of Kog act Pitch Black saw Ferguson invited to work on the Louis Vuitton ball held during the America's Cup defence in Auckland. Although he didn't end up working on that function, in 2004 he and Hodgson found themselves touring the world working on parties for the Louis Vuitton 150th birthday celebrations.

For the Tokyo party, Ferguson, an animator, was paired up with Murakami, an illustrator.