Milk cartons were one of Tom Flemming's first inspirations. "When I was a child, I remember seeing these words and images on milk cartons and realising how something as large and ever-present as language becomes material," he says. TV, too, was a major influence: "I was glued to the TV when I was young: I could see that 'reality' was just a scenario and dependent on how you composed it - even off TV in real life, I'd figure out other ways of seeing it."

After several years as creative director, consultant and art director in various agencies, Tom was offered the chance to do a Master's degree in Electronic Media Arts at the Royal College of Art, followed by an MPhil in Film and TV, from which he graduated last year. "When I first went there, I thought they'd have banks of juicy computer kit that I could get stuck into," he says, "but of course they didn't have much at all. It was disappointing at first, but in the end I realised that it isn't the technology that counts - it's the ideas, and you can realise an idea with anything."

At the RCA, Tom immersed himself in the structural approach to film taken by the American and European directors of the 1970s. "It was a turning point - I realised that I had to unlearn everything I understood before and start from scratch," he says. "My work became focused on what I was thinking about motions and emotions, about the border where thought becomes material, where language becomes object."

Tom's passion for motion extends to his own life: he's a lifelong traveller, having lived and worked across the world. "Change of surroundings is important to me, and affects the work I do. But I love London, which is my official base - it's constantly reinventing itself, while still staying the same, like an old friend."

Tom began working with digital film in the mid-1990s, and was immediately gripped by the possibilities it offered. "The nice thing about working in a more traditional way is that you get a certain tactility - you can see traces of the machine in the end product. But software offers its own forms of tactility, because it gives you the ability to achieve certain effects by following certain steps or routines. In a sense, it's all been thought through beforehand." Isn't this limiting? "In a way, yes. But all tools have limitations built into them. Pushing those limitations to embody some of the process in the result is what I'm interested in," he says.

Process - and the tools used to work up a piece - is important to Tom, who likes to use Adobe software for his projects. "The thing that really fascinates me about Adobe software is the subtleties of it," he says. "It shows an intelligent approach to making software. I like the ease of buttons, and the way processes are dealt with by the software and code. You can press three sequential commands, and the software will remember them and work them off one by one - it's like moving in the dark. Often, for a new project, I get new software or hardware, and the creative process becomes very much bound up with the exploration of the new tools. I'm always interested to see if a new tool will lead to a different result, or how different the result will be in comparison to familiar software."

Tom describes himself as "intrigued" by the effect of new technology on individuals' lives: "People think that technology turns them into bodiless entities, but in reality it just allows them to connect on more levels. People have more means of communication than every, yet frequently find themselves more alone than ever. The thing is to understand how technology works and find the poetics in them that perpetuates our thoughts."

A major ambition for the immediate future is to direct a feature film. "I'm working on a script looking at an exploration of light and colour, based on a 17th century man who could be someone like Vermeer," Tom says. "There are two theories about Vermeer, one that he had a camera obscura, the other that he didn't. I want to show how he began to think about the use of technology. All I have to do is find the funding."