I like this video! Fur, long fur, static fur, curly fur, puffy fur,more fur. mister fur!
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If you’ve been to PauseTalk, then there’s a good chance you know Joseph Keenan. Probably the person outside of me who has attended the most sessions, it’s been a joy all these years to have him attend — and yes, he became a very good friend as well — and it’s with sadness that we see him leave Japan next week, as he heads back to Australia (although I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again here in a few years).
But before he leaves, I absolutely wanted him to have an exhibition at Cafe Pause to show off the countless sketches that I always see him drawing in his many sketchbooks. “Sketchin’” is now on at the cafe, and runs until this coming Monday, July 6, which coincides with this month’s edition of PauseTalk, the last one Joe will be attending.
Via The Apartment Broadcast, Constantin and Laurene Boym's new History Chess is a set of oversized chess pieces that "alludes to a particular icon of the century's history, from the sinking Titanic to the scarred towers of the World Trade Center." Above, a video reenactment of the 1956 "game of the century" between Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne using History Chess pieces.

Ascenders & Descenders is a typographic reinterpretation of Merce Cunningham's dancing hands as recorded by OpenEnded Group for the Loops project.
The piece is a Cunningham dance work reconstructed from textual deconstructions of other Cunningham dance works. Each finger has an associated excerpt from an article, review, or essay on Cunningham from the last 5 decades. These texts become the "ink" with which each finger manifests its movements. Each text is dynamically typeset in 3 dimensional space along the curves traced by his fingertips.
The software keeps track of various movement parameters which it uses to modulate aspects of the visualization such as letter size, camera position, angle, and zoom. Merce not only dances the dance, but becomes typesetter and cinematographer, conducting the audience's view of the dance.
What, from the outside, appear to be subtle manipulations of the hands become a beautiful tangle of diving flocks and waterfalls of letters. Presenting dance in this way, we hope to get closer to the experience of the dance from the inside out.
Watch the video below.
Thnkx John.

It’s about time crayon like children scribbles made it into the tattoo world thanks to artist Yann Travaille at YourMeatISMine.com! Very simple, fun, and clean.
His work reminds me a bit of our good friend Sam at ExplodingDog.com.
via neatorama


the Way Sensing GO + consists of two parts, a workshop and an installation from the outcome. The concept of this piece is building a digital version of The Way Things Go (Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987) assembling a chain of electric modules which has both input and output.
The first version the Way Sensing Go was made in 2008.
This time, the piece, entitled the Way Sensing Go + , will incorporate not only devices and sensors but also animations and films into the chain. For example, if a light bulb lightened up a monitor, flowers would bloom in movie.
4nchor5 la6 will hold a workshop open for public at Clear Gallery in Tokyo for making the modules, which are exhibiting for Kids Programme at NTT Intercommunication Centre from 11th July. The dates for the workshops are set to 27th sat July 13:00-21:00 and 28th sun July 13:00-21:00.

I’ve seen clouds, real clouds, and web clouds, but I’ve never see cardboard clouds, created by Fantastic Norway, which give a pixelated environment of brown clouds which looks pretty awesome in a huge warehouse space. If you have a huge space to do something, go make cardboard clouds! Reminds me a bit of the styrofoam robots!
More pics after he jump!
via core77







The Man With No Shadow by Makoto Tojiki is a life-sized LED light sculpture of a man that welcomed visitors to Tojiki's stand at SaloneSatellite. The Man was just one of some very interesting lighting projects by Tojiki. Tobias Franzel also got a lot of attention by challenging passersby to a quick game of ping-pong. Franzel is the designer of a door that flips into a ping-pong table for two players. Birds on a wire are a common outdoor scene, so why not put them to work on a clothesline? Angelo is a bird-shaped clothespin by Valentina Frosini. And students from the product design department of the University of Lincoln had a solid variety of work at their stand, including some sharp laser cut clock towers.
Given my notoriously campy taste in music, you will be relieved to know that i'm going to carefully avoid reviewing the music side of Barcelona's International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. What's left then? Fashion, a bit of advertising and the SonarMÃ tica exhibition continue
Eulenspiegel by Katrin Olina is from an installation at the Reykjavik Art Museum. I like it a lot. Please check out the interview with Katrin from Milan Design Week as well.

ART iT’s planned online re-launch — replacing the print magazine — was set to launch in July, but it’s already up and running. Via TABlog.

I think I’m going to require any cool space to have Super Sized Stuffed Animal Dolls by Florentijn Hofman from now on, which is on exhibit at Galerie West in The Hague (The Netherlands).
About the show:
“Dushi: A solo show inspired by the toys and (cuddle)sculptures of children, where the change of scale completely changes their function and feeling. ”
Whenever I see a large room with space to fill, I’m going to think it needs a super sized stuffed animal to jump onto.
via todayandtomorrow
source: florentijnhofman
more pics after the jump!






I’ve yet to highlight TAB’s recently launched interview feature, but better late than never. What is TABuzz?
Tokyo Art Beat invites movers and thinkers from the Tokyo art world to contribute to this column. Our guest bloggers give their recommendations and thoughts on who to watch and what to see.
The latest one is with CBCnet founder Yosuke Kurita.

I went to some open studios last week in Boston and met Susan Jane Belton who some years ago was bored, and started painting what happened to be in her studio space, which just so happen to be a pile of to go coffee cups sitting in a corner. Ever since she’s been collecting, bagging, and painting her daily cups of coffee… not all, but the ones the intrigue her. I wish I took a picture of her wall of plastic bags full of coffee cups. Nice simple collection!
Check out Susans work!

A convenient wall of outlet plugs. I’d prefer an inductive wall with magnetic plugs! Anyhow, this beats finding the darn outlet each time hidden beind everything… though I’d fear a flare up.
“Instead of hiding your outlets behind furniture and worrying about the mess of wires tangled behind your entertainment center, consider making an entire wall that’s nothing but outlets. Then you can artfully plug in your appliances wherever the cords look pleasing to you.”
Check out this new video created specifically for the upcoming solo INVADER exhibition later this month at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Top 10 is a solo exhibition of new works by the Parisian street artist known as Invader. The time-lapse footage in the video reveals the geometric complexity of the artist's incredible process in creating his trademark Rubickubism pieces featured in the show.
Anne-Karin Furunes’s gigantic piece took my breath away for a second. The lady at the Gallery Anhava Booth told me that the Norwegian painter is known for her works employing perforation technique. Based on photographs, these pieces have a black or white canvas perforated by the artist in imitation of the screen of a photograph. One the one hand, Furunes’s works are paintings dwelling in light, while on the other hand they express the authenticity and intensity of early beautiful monochrome photographs. I learned that this large-scale portrait, pictured above, was made specifically for Art Basel 09. Stunning.


The “Sometimes I Wonder” Detail of Jack Pierson’s piece at the Cheim & Reid Gallery Booth made me chuckle. Don’t we all?
The Graphic Designer in me was instantly drawn to this piece by Jorge Macchi. Tempted to do the same but with website-layouts.

I definitely need to catch this: “The Death of Mario,” an exhibition from artist Koshi Kawachi that tries to capture aspects from the Mario series. It runs at the Lower Akihabara gallery until June 26. Via Offworld.

First the Fail Whale shirts, and now the “Anonymous User” shirts! Ya gotta love the twitter fans!
$16-18: ThinkGeek
via bookofjoe.



Sudarshan Shetty’s Untitled Piece (from the “Leaving Home” series) was amusing and absurd at the same time. Sudarshan uses a veriety of everyday materials to create kinetic sculptures. This large work refers to the idea of homes as a physical enclosure with many eyes: an imposing stainless steel chamber with a myriad of plastic sunglasses in lieu of windows. After visitors enter the chamber, the politics of viewing is immediately reversed - the eyeglasses turn to scrutinize the new inhabitant of this small enclosure, placing them under the dispassionate surveillance of invisible viewers.



Jeppe Hein’s Loop Bench is part art piece, part bench, part slide. I had an fantastic time watching people (young and old) interact with it.
Tatiana Trouvé’s untitled “Cable Sculpture” made me think of my cable mess under my desk in my office, just of course, in a much more artsy and aesthetic way. Definitely made me look.


Roman Signers blue balloons stuck in an old window over at the Stampa Galerie Booth had me chuckle. (I unfortunately couldn’t find the real name of the piece in my notes. Pardon my ignorance, and please let me know if you happen to know it.)



Jorinde Voigt’s pieces at Galerie Klueser caught my attention. In her work the young Berlin artist describes her environment by transforming everyday phenomena such as eagle flight paths, kisses, Top Ten song etc into an abstract system or representation, using her own visual language.
Bill Thompson, back from the Venice Biennale, reflects on digital art and its relationship with technology.
(via Bruce Sterling) |

We were shocked and dismayed to hear that painter and illustrator Kiersten Essenpreis was having difficulty with her right hand, the magical tool that allows her to create some of our favourite work. These reactions turned to even more surprise when we realized that she is having a Save My Hand Sale to help with the medical bills. We wish her all the best because she needs to keep her tidily quirky scenes coming (go to youfail.com for more). See the rest of the week at Art MoCo after the jump.

Beautiful illustrative work by a Kyoto-based artist — the only profile info on the site lists her name (Jun) and that she’s a 21-year-old student. Via Max.

Indiana Robert ,”Hope”, painted aluminium 2009
I am off to Art Basel. Hopefully I’ll come back with a suitecase filled with bloggity art and design goodness from the swiss alps.
Are you going to Art Basel? Do you know anyone that is exhibiting that I should go see?

New York Art Beat is celebrating its 1st anniversary with a party and exhibition this Saturday (June 13, from 19:00) at the Dumbo Arts Center. The event will include lots of performances, including Shantell and Hiro. Here’s wishing everyone a great event, and a long life for the site!

Also from Lotte, a commission for the KFHein foundation called Curiosities 09, a project inspired by 17th century curiosity cabinets. Six cabinets were designed, each containing an item that is getting scarce in 2009. In the historic cabinets the curiosities were often parts of animals that do not biologically belong together. In these new cabinets, made from walnut and glass, odd combinations is used as the starting point to create new objects. Each object has its own function. This way the cabinets can be used as a retrospective in the future to show what the state of these subjects was in 2009. Water, after the jump.
I am delighted to see that Roman Signer, one of my favorite swiss artists, finally has an up to date web presenence.

Tokyo-based eco collective PangeaSeed is organizing an event, “No Fin No Future,” on July 30 at SuperDeluxe. From the official website:
PangeaSeed will feature a special screening of the award winning documentary Sharkwater. The event will be supported by special guest speaker, Kim McCoy of the Shark Angels, guest bands, and DJ. As well as a charity art exhibition which will feature some of the worlds most sought-after modern artists, photographers, and designers.
These individuals have all donated their time and extraordinary talents to creating one of a kind originals and/or contributing existing artwork to help raise awareness and save one of the worlds most important and misunderstood animals. All artwork will be available for purchase and proceeds will be donated to an organization helping to save sharks.
Some of the works are on display here.


In 2005, artist Maider López put the call out for willing participants to create an intentional car cluster muck in the Aralar Mountains. In response, more than 400 folks drove up to the countryside in 160 vehicles to get stuck. The result: an unexpected invasion to illustrate the automobile’s impact on the landscape. This made me smile.
(thank you inhabitat)

Carl Randall is a Ph.D. student in oil painting at Tokyo National University of Arts, and he’s looking for volunteers for a new project. He’s currently on the lookout for hundreds of people to pose for portraits that would appear on large canvases, and later exhibited in Tokyo and London. If interested, you can get in touch with Carl directly.
Above, a portrait by Carl of writer Donald Richie.

Several designers have already approached conveying the global statistics by redistributing the world population in a fictive community of 100 persons, such as If the World were a Village of 100 People, Miniature Earth or Neotopia. The World of 100 [toby-ng.com] interprets this concept as a set of 20 (unfortunately, not 100) neatly designed infographic posters. Toby Ng, the designer, chose a specific statistic for each poster and used simple vector graphics in order to visually present and re-tell the information in the simplest and most accessible way.
Let's test your knowledge: How many people speak English, in a world populated by 100 people?

Designboom has a rather nice gallery of shots from Jules Julien’s “Cadavres Exquis” exhibition at the Diesel Denim Gallery in Aoyama. The show runs until August 2.
The Degree Exhibition at Konstfack, University college of arts, crafts and design in Stockholm presents the 2009 degree students: artists, designers, craftsmen and art teacher educators. For the first time in Konstfack’s history you can see all the degree projects at the same time.
We picked the Growing chair by Michel Bussein as an example.
Below is his Nature Manifesto:
Having evolved from nature, we have gradually differentiated ourselves from it.
Modern society has come to build itself on the perception that nature and man are separated.
This differentiation has come to inhibit us and our way of creating.
We have now reached the point when the way forward is going back.ÂWe have to accept that we and everything we create are part of nature.
This mindset is essential for evolution as a whole.
When applying this to our way of thinking we will liberate ourselves from stagnated conventions.ÂTo move further we need to incorporate the living matter that surrounds us.
Let us use the complexity of living nature and include it in our creations.
These creations will then redefine the way we reconstruct nature.
Only then will we truly move forward.ÂIt is time for man and nature to reunite.
The latest Tokyo art-related economic casualty: the TKG Daikanyama gallery. From TAB’s latest news digest:
Every month has brought news from London and New York of gallery closures and cut-backs, but so far the only obvious Tokyo victims have been media ones (Ping Mag, Real Tokyo, Art iT, Tokyo Art Cross). However, this week we found out that TKG Daikanyama appears to be closing down after its current exhibition finishes.
I am absolutely in love with the look of this “A Kiss from Tokyo” short. It’s a trailer for an upcoming book by illustrator Kevin Dart called Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7, which is scheduled to come out this summer. The trailer was directed by Dart and Stephane Coedel. Yuki 7 is my new fave heroine, bar none. Via Motionographer.

101TOKYO has announced the winner of its Berengo Prize — the fair’s “best of show” — and that artist is Yuichi Higashionna, who “crafts chaotic chandeliers and installations out of everyday objects such as fluorescent lights and hand mirrors.” The prize gives Higashionna a residency at the Berengo Studio in Venice.
Here’s an interview with the artist from Shift Japan.
A classic foundation project that occurs at RISD during one’s freshmen year is making a chair with no glue or cuts with only folds using 1 large sheet of corrugated cardboard, and bonus points for including a table of some sort.
The above video is a result of Danny Kim’s quick exploration on this project. There are a few more online if you dig around, but I’ve always wondered why such great projects like his never make it to market even if using a different material? Cost, manufacturing, longevity, uniqueness, business, too creative, market. Maybe I’ll just make a few for my house.
Walking the aisles of New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair this weekend, it was clear that the Recession was hitting the design world pretty hard. The show seemed to be only 70% of the size of years past, and those who were showing tended to be showing smaller, more affordable products. There was still some good work to be seen, though, including what we thought was the highlight: Kikkerland’s booth.
That’s right, the highlight of the the show was’t furniture at all– it was the booth at Kikkerland, can-structed of 2000 cans of soup, to be donated to New York’s hungry through City Harvest after the show was taken down. Designed by Jan Habraken, the booth was a recession-friendly, environmentally-benign, and captivating show-stealer.
Check out a couple more photos after the jump!

Is there a new trend developing here? Is there an emerging move from infographical movies to infographical gaming? Killer Flu! [clinical-virology.org] is an educational game in the known infographic and isometric visual style that allows players to learn more about how the influenza virus is transmitted and how it changes every year. It also explains why one can get more than one dose of the flu over your lifetime, and why vaccines need changing every year.
Although the instructions are a bit overwhelming and the game flow not really intuitive, it certainly provides sufficient motivation to learn some quite valuable lessons about the principles of the creation and spreading of viruses.
Thnkx Andrew.

Couldn’t make it to this past weekend’s Design Festa (Vol. 29)? Tokyomade’s Masao posts a Flickr photoset.
Thought of the week: Exploring new environments pushes for progression, but don’t always go in with the knowledge you carry from your past. Go in with experience, not necessarily your knowledge.
- Compact Kitchen : an immersible kitchen table set.
- Economy Vending Machine: It dispenses when the economy stumbles.
- Objectified Documentary: it’s playing in Boston next week.
- Diesel Side Watch: Putting time on the edge, not face.
- Potato Portraits: face prints on potatoes…neat.

For those that consider themselves sophisticated designfolk, topiaries may seem the stuff of Edward Scissorhands suburbia or the artistic outlets of a housewife with hedge shears. But consider this - these carefully crafted plant forms are an eco-friendly alternative to promotional billboards or waste-making flyers, and can add to the environment rather than take away from it. If you’re in the market for some seriously impressive shrubbery, there’s no better man for the job than Topiary Joe.
Read the rest of Topiary Joe’s Incredible Green Garden Sculptures
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Andrew just brought to my attention Goliga Books, an independent Tokyo-based editorial firm that creates books about photography, art, and design for various publishers, and run by Ivan Vartanian, a former New Yorker. I see its behind Tiffany Godoy’s Style Deficit Disorder, a Harajuku fashion primer I quite enjoyed — Néojaponisme was a bit more critical.

“Maps are useful but never neutral”
I found this sliced up paper graphic incredibly amusing. From the work of Brain Banton.

Just a reminder that the May/June ‘09 edition of TAB’s Tokyo Art Map is out. If you can’t find it, you can download and print a PDF version as well (fits on four A4 sheets).

I had a chance to check out Daniel’s exhibition yesterday — the one I posted about — and quite enjoyed what I saw. The best was to have him explain the meaning behind each piece — it was great to hear the justification for each element used. Unbelievably, he’s selling t-shirts for 1,000 yen — yes, I of course grabbed one — and each work is also available for sale as a poster.
It looks like Daniel will be coming to this Monday’s PauseTalk, so it should be a good chance to interact with the artist and ask him about his works.
I saw Steve Lambert speak last night at the “Anti Advertising Salon” at welcometomeet.com, organized by generous and fabulous Marc and Sara Schiller. Today, I spot a post linking to Steve’s work over at Chris Glass’ fab blog. I love when worlds collide.

Just a friendly reminder that this month’s edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 31) happens this Monday (May 11) at Cafe Pause — it’s the second Monday this month due to this past week’s Golden Week holiday. Start time is 20:00, as always.
Also, this PT will mark the start of an exhibition at the cafe (until May 17) by Canadian artist Eric Chan (Eepmon), who is in town for a few shows — he will also have exhibitions at Gallery O2 (May 20-31) and the Design Festa Gallery (May 25-31). Eric will be on hand at PT as well to talk about his works.

Just a friendly reminder that this month’s edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 31) happens this Monday (May 11) at Cafe Pause — it’s the second Monday this month due to this past week’s Golden Week holiday. Start time is 20:00, as always.
Also, this PT will mark the start of an exhibition at the cafe (until May 17) by Canadian artist Eric Chan (Eepmon), who is in town for a few shows — he will also have exhibitions at Gallery O2 (May 20-31) and the Design Festa Gallery (May 25-31). Eric will be on hand at PT as well to talk about his works.

Just a friendly reminder that this month’s edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 31) happens this Monday (May 11) at Cafe Pause — it’s the second Monday this month due to this past week’s Golden Week holiday. Start time is 20:00, as always.
Also, this PT will mark the start of an exhibition at the cafe (until May 17) by Canadian artist Eric Chan (Eepmon), who is in town for a few shows — he will also have exhibitions at Gallery O2 (May 20-31) and the Design Festa Gallery (May 25-31). Eric will be on hand at PT as well to talk about his works.

Artist Audrey Kawasaki has an exhibition that starts tomorrow (running until May 16) at the Space Yui gallery in Aoyama, and she previews the works in this LiveJournal entry. Via Boing Boing.

Swedish illustrator Daniel Johansson, otherwise known as Venom Palette, will have a show this coming week (May 8-14) at the Design Festa Gallery in Harajuku. Some of you may remember that I featured a piece Daniel created for PKN Gothenburg a while back over at PechaKucha Daily.

I was introduced to VerTerra’s intriguing dinnerware products during this years GEL conference. At first sight these unique plates seemed like raw sheets of veneer pressed into structural shapes, but then the founder gave a quick overview of the project. Simply put:
“Our environmentally-friendly plates, bowls and serving dishes are made only from two products: fallen leaves and water. They’re non-toxic, biodegradable, compostable, durable, lightweight, convenient and downright stylish.”
I love it! Collect fallen leaves, steam press them to shape, then deliver it. The plates will run you about a dollar for a pair, but once they get into Wholefoods later this month, I’m hoping Verterra will be affordable enough to be a abundant in everyday gatherings.
I wished I grabbed a few samples when I had the chance, but I’ll just have to wait for the next gathering to get some…unles someone from Verterra can send me some for my next party ![]()
If your seeking an alternative, check out Wasura paper plates, which will cost you a bit more, but just as cool looking.
Some pictures from VerTerra’s website after the jump.








Martin Holtkamp has put up a Flickr photoset of photos taken at the opening for Rob Judges‘ exhibition at Gallery Kabutoya.
I didn’t drink all of that bottle, I swear.
Last night I was the guest of friend’s Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Jan Habraken for the Diesel’s “Only The Brave” New York Launch. Alissia had her Acrylic Medal of Honor as part of the show. The one piece that I think everyone was taking note of was a full wall detailed image that makes me tired just thinking about. While I don’t know much about the artist (or his name), I did find out he drew all the 8.5†x 11†sketches on the subway.
The Keystone Design Union X Diesel Presents:
Diesel’s “Only The Brave” New York Launch - Thursday April 30th starting at 8pm, Private Launch party.
OpenHouse Gallery
201 Mulberry St (between Spring + Kenmare)
New York, NY 10012The official site is - www.isbrave.com

What strange creatures inhabit the world of Saul Zanolari, such doll-children with adult-like aspects. These two are up to assisted fertilization, but what of their friend on the trapeze? As she rolls her eyes, what on earth is she thinking? Or the mysterious, masked one? See tidbits from the rest of the week after the jump.

Designboom posts a few images — and a video, but it wasn’t loading for me — from what looks like an amazing installation that was featured at the Milano Salone by Canon. Both parts — “Aquatic Color” and “Animated Knots” — were created by architect Akihisa Hirata and interactive artist Takahiro Matsuo.

Just got back from the opening for Tokyo-based Canadian artist Rob Judges terrific new show at Gallery Kabutoya in Ginza. I very much enjoyed Rob’s modern take on totem poles of old, augmented with a healthy dose of comics-influenced superhero visuals and beyond. The show runs until May 10, and I recommend you check it out.
Pictured above, “Poems, Hugs & Harmin’ Me” (left) and “Another Day on Wall Street.”
![]() |
The Plenitude Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff Rich Gold Foreword by John Maeda MIT Press, September 2007
Mike Kuniavsky points out that “The Plenitude Companion“, the parts left out of the MIT Press book, contains Rich Gold’s thoughts on design and ubicomp. |

"Infographics, the Game" might be too ambitious for a title, but seems to be apt for the first "infographically-inspired" (or should I say "Royskopp-inspired"?) game I currently know of. From the intro, over the in-game annotations, to the high scores screen, the game Effing Hail - a Catastrophic Phenomenon [intuitiongames.com], clearly has strong connotations with the clean, isometric infographic style most of us love.
The aim of Effing Hail is to take control of an updraft of air to keep falling hail in the upper levels of the bee-, sea-, dee- and effing-spheres so that the drops have time to grow into massive, destructive stones. The stones then should be directed to crush and destroy an increasingly complex ecosystem of houses, skyscrapers, planes, satellites and civilians.
On the visualization side, I am quite sure that playing the game leads to learning how (dangerous) hail actually forms.
Thnkx Andrew! Via Offworld.
While i was in Los Angeles ealier this month, i had the great opportunity to visit the UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts and chat with some of the students. The department educates designers and artists for the information age by teaching the fundamentals of Design, Media, and the Arts, and encouraging experimentation and innovation continue
The phone is all about expediency. Both people on the call have a job to do and each of them is looking to get through the call and move on to something else.
A cup of coffee is an opportunity to meet someone, talk about a few other things, make a friend or a business acquaintance. Done right, the face to face reference check is a lot more than a reference check. It’s a way to grow your network and your business. And it’s also the best way to find out exactly what you need to know about a person you want to hire, invest in, or otherwise go into business with.
The Face To Face Reference Check, by Fred Wilson

We ended the “Little Pink” exhibition last night with a nice little gathering, which also gave us a chance to say goodbye to Shantell, who left for NYC today. Thank you Hiro for the photo. From left: me, Shantell, and Anna.
The exhibition is set under the aegis of Nikola Tesla and its name refers to a village in Alaska. Little more than 200 inhabitants live in Gakona. There's a service station, a small school, a post office, a couple of diners and a scientific research base: the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program continue

The “Little Pink” exhibition at Cafe Pause ends today (Sunday, April 26), and we’ll have an informal gathering tonight from 19:00 until 22:00, before we do the takedown. Shantell leaves Tokyo for NYC on the very next day, so it’s a final chance to say goodbye and wish her well on the next leg of her artistic journey!
Topobo’s kinetic memory toys which I’ve known about since 2004 is finally available for a limited production purchase. Check out the video above or website to learn more. I played around with them while at the MIT medialab in 2004-5, and must say, they are addictive! Congrats Hayes and Amanda for inventing, sharing, and bringing this idea to life!

Don’t Judge People According To Their Appearance by Peter Chmela. If you look carefully, you can see that each photo spells out a word of the title phrase. View the full sequence here.
(via ashleysimko)

Artist Lee Stoetzel's fourth solo show at the Mixed Greens gallery will feature his iconic Big Fall installation, known for his sculptural icons rendered in wood, in this instance it's leaves. The announcement featured the image above and it struck me how the wooden gutter and leaves might make a desirable replacement for a mantel (as art piece bien sure). Per Mixed Greens, "Each piece was created at a scale of 1:1. As the viewer investigated the craftsmanship, the familiar object was transformed and rediscovered." Just a thought. After the jump, Soner Ön's windows of escape and inspiration.

A black dotted architectural installation will be greeting visitors at the entrance to Superstudio Più in Milan this year. Called The Doll House it's one of several items created by Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc for Milan Design Week. "With its chimney and pearlescent smoke, it works as a monolith that separates the world of objects from the world of forms, thus representing a passage into another dimension. The pavilion's interior is suffused with a passionate intertwining of rational and irrational features in a family of six objects that can be read between the covers of The Doll House as the resistance of women chained in Romanticism that prefer to buy the flowers themselves." The objects; sofas, a table, a toy car, a crib, a feather duster, and the Mrs. Dalloway mini hotplate. More after the jump.

The “Little Pink” exhibition — read about it here — is now on at Cafe Pause, and runs until Sunday (April 26).
Update: Looks like we’re going to have a reception tomorrow night (Thursday, April 23) at the cafe with Shantell and Gelman for the show. I’ll post more details soon, but please join us if you can!
Update 2: Apologies, but scheduling problems will prevent the reception from happening tomorrow night.

Tokyo Art Beat has just launched two fresh new tees for your buying pleasure — remember, all proceeds go to help support the site. On the left is “Modularly Yours” by Ian Lynam — which I promptly ordered — and on the right “White Discharge” by Teppei Kaneuji.
It’s interesting to note that TAB is also now selling the Tokyo By Tokyo guide — probably the easiest place to order it online.

Starting tomorrow (April 21), Cafe Pause is hosting the “Little Pink” exhibition, a collaboration between Alexander Gelman and Shantell Martin. It’s a fun project: Shantell drew over — or as she would say, “bombed” — 100 flyers that were produced for Gelman’s “Little Black” installation at the Nanzuka Underground gallery back in 2007. Here’s a video of Shantell in action, using her pink pigment Posca pens.
All 100 pieces will be on display, and the show runs until Sunday, April 26.


How’s this for a QR barcode! Produced by Tokyo-based creative agency SET, it was put together to promote the ongoing collaborations between LV and Takashi Murakami. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I see a stylized code like this, and I’m quite surprised that it actually works.

Seeing as we've been posting about water and the environment of late Elisabeth Buecher's My Shower Curtain is a Green Warrior (above) really got our attention. The goal of the piece was to show how water overconsumption could be countered in "either a disturbing or a gorgeous way" using innovative materials and inflatable technology. According to Elisabeth, "This shower curtain slowly inflates around you while you shower. It leaves you only a few minutes to take your shower before trapping you." Better hurry.
Elizabeth is part Puff and Flock a new London-based textiles collective that launched at Interiors Birmingham with Designersblock earlier this year. The collective has several members; Kathy Schicker, AmeÌlie Labarthe, AureÌlie MosseÌ, Aysseline Roy, Jenny Leary, Melissa French and Jo Angell. We'll be featuring more of their work in subsequent posts. More Green Warrior after the jump.

Before heading off to NYC, Shantell had another Tape4fun event this past Monday in Yoyogi park — see the Flickr photoset.

On May 1st New York's School of Visual Arts will present "Potential Energy: 19 Designers Set Their Ideas in Motion," an exhibition of products, campaigns and services developed by graduating Design MFA students. One item in particular got our attention, Gustavo Garcia's Web site Susu which allows users to create custom art prints based on patterns generated from their personal photos. A few more examples and details after the jump.


A remarkable exhibition at LACMA in Los Angeles traces the paths followed by a Germany split in two after World War II. Each side developed distinctive versions of modern and postmodern art--at times in accord with their political cultures, at other times in opposition to them. I knew i would get a powerful lesson of history but i was not expecting the show to be so overwhelmingly good continue
The A.i.R. Project — it stands for “Art in the Room” — is a new device from Bandai that acts as a sort of high-tech sculpture, with a combination of lights and blown air creating a soothing yet dynamic effect. It was designed by artist Taro Suzuki, and you can see it in action in the above video. Via CScout Japan.
I've never had any interest in football (that's soccer for you, American friendz.) Never ever. I come from a country that never won any championship (and if they ever did, well... i still don't care), i find men in shorts a rather pathetic affair and i just don't get sport on tv anyway. There's been just one exception to this until last week and it was Eric Cantona, his sardines, his iced tea commercials continue

Cape Town-based — but Japan loving — production company Chocolate Cake is now blogging. To find out more about the Japan connection, see this post from last year.

Art director Luis Mendo decided to take a 3-month “inspirational retreat” in Tokyo, and he’s been keeping some brilliantly illustrated diaries of his everyday experiences — see the Flickr photoset of some of the pages. He’s also putting together a great web-based diary of his Tokyo adventures, featuring photos, videos, etc.

RISD’s first “What We Do” Event is going on today, April 11th. Head on down.. I’ll be there!
“What We Do is a new, student-run, RISD event designed to bridge departmental gaps and create new connections through the sharing of ideas.
On Saturday, April 11th, 100 members of the RISD community (students, faculty, staff, and alums) will share something that they do with the rest of the RISD community and the larger surrounding community of Providence.
Leading up to the day of the event, 8 site-specific “spaces†will be created by members of every department at RISD; majors paired up to encourage cross-departmental collaboration. The spaces that they build will house the day’s events creating a street-fair environment for the open sharing of how people at RISD spend their time and energy. ”
update: some pics of the event after the jump.

Following the yellow dashed arrow lines around campus to guide us around in the drizzly rain!

A quick visit the to nature lab… a moose with a top hat!

Erminio Pinque (IL Faculty, Big Nazo) shares how creature- costumes & masks can be constructed and employed to subvert “normal†environments.



Elsa gives one of the costumes a try, hopping around, breaking it down with her silver shoes!

A student constructed dome… parts from home depot.

Inside: Wyatt Glenn (IL ‘10) shares harmonic resonance instruments, hand made from found materials.

Some random scraps of wood in front of the stairs. neat! yup, I’m at risd…

The conductor for the Typographic Orchestra!
Sarah Sandman (GD ‘09) and Melissa Small (GD ‘09) will direct a typographic orchestra (typorchestra):
Seriously!



Sometimes I wonder, then: given that everyone in design seems to more or less know everyone else, are we really having the kinds of meaningful, constructive, critical discourses that we really should be having? Are we too quick to take offense at the opinions of our peers? Or are we pulling our punches too much when discussing the merits of the work that our peers turn out? To put a finer point on it: are we being honest with one another?
…
The notion of speaking openly, honestly and objectively about work is inherent to learning how to be a better designer. That’s why every design school uses critiques as a core tool of teaching design. Critiques conducted amongst peers, people you know, people that you have to see again the next day in class, that you have to build relationships with. If you’re learning design, then you’re giving and receiving criticism regularly. If you’re not engaging in constructive criticism, then you just aren’t learning about design. And yet, at some point when a designer achieves some modest level of notoriety or establishes some foundation of peers in the industry, the critiques stop. If you’re a practicing graphic designer of more than say five years, it’s a pretty good bet that no one outside of your design practice actively and regularly provides you with objective, rational and lucid feedback.
Dear Designer, You Suck, by Khoi Vinh
The physical value of sound is on exhibition by Yuri Suzuki at Clear gallery in Tokyo which runs until May 2nd. If you can’t make it to the show, here’s a Flickr photo set.
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And… here’s a nice yuri_suzuki_breakbeat_mix.
Andra bloggar om: konst, musik, tokyo
tags technorati : art music tokyo


Awesome relief prints by Bryan Nash Gill. I’d love to see a print using a cold press sheet, or maybe on handmade Japanese paper.


Impressive Relief Prints by Bryan Nash Gill. I would *love* one of these decorating a wall in casa swissmiss. Stunning.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Taken from In Love With A. Lincoln, by Maira Kalman.
(via bauldoff)

Packa Pappas Kappsäck, 2006 | (Pack Daddy’s Suitcases) by Michael Johansson
Via fffffound. Can anyone tell me who I can credit this to?

The wonderful book Dear Gretchen [gretchenetc.com] investigates all the letters that the author, Gretchen Haas, has kept inside a luggage case since her childhood. The design process of the book included finding the word and phrase frequency of the letters, categorizing them by sender, by date, and finally writing personal reflections about each of the senders. Many beautiful graphs were constructed to reveal the word frequency and type (e.g. swear words, abbreviations, colors, names, slang, nicknames, holidays, etc.), and each of the 187 letters were thoroughly documented inside of the book.
The book is divided into 4 sections; Friends, Boyfriends, Family, and The Unsent (letters Gretchen wrote but never gave out for some reason or another). Each person is accompanied by a short memoir and series of questions that she answered about each person (i.e. When was the last time I saw this person, Most vivid memory, Where are they now...).
Most graphs inside the book were completely developed out of paper, as paper stands for an universal symbol of childhood, and most of the letters were received in elementary and middle school. The forms of the graphs range from very traditional to non-sensical, representing a very real and fantastical memory of childhood.

Behance and Coolhunting bring to us their very first conference “99%” which “focuses less on inspiration, and more on how idea generation and organization come together to make ideas happen.” It all takes place next week at the The Times Center building NYC, April 16-17, 2009… I’ll be there, so get your tickets here while they last!
A few of the speakers:
- Michael Bierut of Pentagram
- Cheryl Dorsey at Echoing Green
- Seth Godin of Squidoo, and several Books (purple cow, tribes, marketers are liars)
- Ji Lee of Google and Bubble Project
- Jeffrey Kalmikoff and Jake Nickell at Threadless
- Scott Thomas of Obama for America
- full list here.

My dearest Audrey — and Radio OK Fred co-host — has produced a new book, and the launch happens tonight (18:00-20:00) at NOW IDeA by UTRECHT in Aoyama — this will be an advance sale of the book. Des Ailes is an adaptation of the Graine-d’aile fairy tale by French surrealist poet Paul Eluard, featuring new original drawings by Audrey.

Is This Your Luggage [isthisyourluggage.com] is a photo collection of several pieces of lost luggage, unpacked and photographed for your voyeuristic pleasure (or to find the right owner, according to the website).
Only the real depiction can beat any visualization.

3D Dewey Data Visualization [syedrezaali.com] is a visual exploration of "3D Space, particle systems, OpenGL and Java, alpha blending, bill boarding, user interactivity, self-organizing algorithms (Kohonen), and electromagnetic attractions & repulsion". It is also a rather, hmmm, random looking 3D data collection of one year of transaction data (e.g. books, DVDs) from the Seattle Public Library. Each particle somehow represents the category and how many items where checked out in that category.
More visual candy here.
Via Visual Complexity.
A pretty nifty door designed by Slam Doors. Built for a toddler, kid, and adult to size in 1 door.
Reminds me of a project I did (porsche door) at RISD back in 2002, except my door was designed for a dog, person, Porsche, and window fence when a package was delivered or you just wanted a large opening without anyone walking in .
via interiordesignroom
Slam Doors

On Wednesday I attended the opening for this year’s second edition of 101TOKYO, held again in Akihabara, but this time at the Akiba Square event space inside the UDX building. It’s not really fair to compare this edition to last year’s — they were quite different beasts — so I’ll just congratulate Jason, Kosuke, Donald, and the entire 101TOKYO crew for a terrific event. The opening was a blast — and according to Jason, 400-500 were in attendance. Oh, and the purple rocks.
101TOKYO ends today (April 5), so depending on when you read this you may still have a chance to go out and catch it on the last day, or go to the after-party to be held later tonight (from 21:00) at Trump Room in Shibuya — that’s where they’ll be giving out the Berengo Prize. I’ll put up a report tomorrow at PechaKucha Daily on last Thursday’s special edition of PechaKucha Night — it was hosted by our very own Mark and Astrid, who took a break from preparations for their big exhibition, which opens this week at Gallery Ma.
Below, a few more photos from the opening.

Party people taking in art.

Jason giving me a “you lookin’ at me?” face during the event’s opening press conference.

New this year: gigantic art.

Party people drinking and chatting in the main hallway. The purple definitely works.

My friends Ega and Erika, obviously having a good time.

Juniper giving me the look, and in the background we see Digiki, who helped produce last year’s edition, and made it to the opening despite the broken arm.
Artscape International is a monthly version in English of Japanese art website Artscape, edited by Alan Gleason. You’ll find reviews and commentary, as well as an exhaustive database of museums and galleries.
Maddie and I come across this truck quite often in the mornings when we walk by on our normal dog route. It’s typically parked in the same area which isn’t that notable except for the fact that the building it’s near is quite clean, slightly prissy and something that you would expect to see on some parts of Madison Ave. We like the truck because it’s such a contrast to the building. We also like the gestures that the marks represent. I’m sure if you asked the owner of the truck or those that have to work in the building they’d offer some other opinions. But those marks kind of show some signs of whose talking with their paint and markers. Most of the stripes tail off towards the top because their arms weren’t any longer. And those that were able to get higher probably climbed on the truck. But as time goes by, all the marks tend to blend into each other into indecipherable symbols.
I was wondering about those shapes so I took a couple pictures. The first image is quite smudgy. So I blurred things enough in the second image that some of those abstract shapes become more prominent. Taking the abstraction a bit further I was curious to see how those shapes played out inside a fairly simple grid. Those shapes fall into place more logically then I would have guessed. I’m not sure what’s to be learned here, but maybe there’s a bit more conformity going on then meets the eye at first glance.

Synchronous Objects [synchronousobjects.osu.edu] is a beautiful project that aims to visualize choreographic information in "new ways". It focuses on revealing the interlocking systems of organization in the choreography of William Forsythe's "One Flat Thing". These systems were quantified through the collection of data and transformed into a series of objects that aim to reveal patterns and structures.
The data includes Spatial Data, tracking a single point of each dancer in three-dimensional space, and Attribute Data, built from the dancers' first hand accounts, such as when the gave or received a cue, what alignments they followed, when they were improvising and what themes they were performing in every second of the dance.
The collection of data visualizations is surprisingly sophisticated and interdisciplinary, as it crosses the realms from traditional data statistics to explorative data art. It is so rich that one cannot fully describe it in detail. Available visualizations range from "Movement Density" (where did the dancers spent most of the time?) over "Difference Marks" (compressing the dancers' motion over time) to a 3D "DataFan" (a series of geometric operations that fold and twist determined from the sync-up data).

AirCoaster 3D is a high-speed 3D roller coaster simulation for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and yours for $0.99. Users are able to design their own tracks and sound effects, but a more interesting feature allows one to download tracks created by others, including tracks that mimic the stock market charts of popular companies. For instance, below is a video demonstration of a roller coaster track based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average from October 2007 to March 2009.
One might notice the concept is not that new: one should also watch the Housing Prices Rollercoaster posted back in April 2007.

Spotted on Facebook: the 101TOKYO event space being put together. The show itself runs April 2-5 at Akiba Square (inside the UDX building) in Akihabara, and make sure to drop by Thursday evening (April 2, 18:00-20:00) for a special edition PechaKucha Night hosted by our very own Mark Dytham.

Piece together for Peace [graflexdirections.com] is a neat project that rotates and pans around parts of the world map to visually form life-like animals, ranging from a cow over a dog to a horse.
Via Swiss Miss.

Daniel DeSure makes some pretty cool LED lights. I think all LED messages should scatter. Reminds me of Tom Hulberts(ideo) led wall installation.

Catarina Hällzon uses nature's leftovers for her jewellery. Perch skin is used for the brooch above, but the pig gut necklace is just as intriguing.

Emotions and explosions are depicted in Rebecca Bird's watercolours based on photos of nuclear bomb blasts.

Jud Turner combines nature and technology within sculptures that make use of found objects and welded steel.

James Clar's light sculptures are big, bold and bright.

Mixed-media sculptures by Paolo Fumagalli are a study in contrasts.
More at Art MoCo.
Could chemical reactions in fruits be also used to create on-off switches, the basic building blocks of computer logic and memory? Would it be possible to create a computer with fruits? The Fruit Computer Laboratory project proposes to create a temporary laboratory, open to the general public, that will raise questions and reflections about the construction of a future computer based on fruits continue

Designboom covers Yuri Suzuki’s “The Physical Value of Sound” exhibition, now on at Clear Gallery in Roppongi. It runs until May 2.
Tokyo Art Beat’s blog has a look at Tokyo/Japan-related art news from the week of March 23-27. I hope they continue with these.

Catarina Hällzon uses nature's leftovers for her jewellery. Perch skin is used for the brooch above, but the pig gut necklace is just as intriguing.

Emotions and explosions are depicted in Rebecca Bird's watercolours based on photos of nuclear bomb blasts.

Jud Turner combines nature and technology within sculptures that make use of found objects and welded steel.

James Clar's light sculptures are big, bold and bright.

Mixed-media sculptures by Paolo Fumagalli are a study in contrasts.
More at Art MoCo.
A great info viz video of “Little Red Riding Hood“. Awesome simple airplane graphics! This project was inspired by the famous “Royksopp: Remind Me” Video.

The 101TOKYO contemporary art fair is just around the corner (April 2-5), and they’ve just announced that a new project called the “101QUESTIONS Educational Program” will be part of the show. The program is comprised of six panel discussions that will be held over the four days of the event, with the idea of addressing issues from the world of contemporary art. The lineup of speakers is extensive and should make for some interesting sessions — the schedule doesn’t appear to be online yet, but I’m sure it will be up very soon.
Update: The details are now online.
Here’s a fun little remix 2.0 of the original “Did You Know” video reminding us how fast our worlds shifted because of technology and a global economy. First remix after the jump as well.

Shantell adds to her “pen tribe,” with the latest batch photographed by another PauseTalker, Benjamin Parks. You can see all the photos in this Flickr photoset. In the photo, Sophie, yet another PauseTalker.

Antrepo asks the question: What is the colour of the Internet? Not an easy question to answer, is it? First, the company had to determine how many websites exist. According to a Netcraft index, in August 2008 there were 176,748,506 and 224,749,695 as of March 2009. Then it was a matter of determining the top sites. Top list information for the categories of design, game and global is from the Alexa Web Information Service. Blog top list information is from Technorati. Finally, an analysis of the palette was made and the results presented in poster format.
Dana’s work is always so delicate, inspiring and challenging. Here is her WildUrban Radio. My take on it is that you just need to turn the knob to listen to a variety of birds from your area. The radio is mapped directly to your location and you can hear the smallest species directing you closer to them whether you are going North or South ….
I have ordered one of those from her and will update on my productivity level asap.


Our favorite crew at Improv Everywhere does it again with a very enlightening High Five Mission smartly placed up the stairs in the subway. 2,000 high fives in 45 minutes, thousands more smiles… pretty awesome!
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I may be obsessed with my iPhone, but there is still some cool stuff happening with “regular”‘ phones, and Ivan Poupyrev and Karl D.D. Willis‘ 12Pixels projects — created at Sony CSL — actually makes me wish I had one. The app lets you draw and share pixel-based images, all done through your phone’s touch pad. There’s much more info on the project’s official site, including videos — 12Pixels is also covered in the latest issue of New Scientist.
The project will be featured in the upcoming “Kansei x Tsukuba x Design” exhibition at Axis Gallery, March 27-31 — a reception will take place on the 28th (Saturday), as part of “Roppongi Art Night.”

Jason Lazarus, To Abdul Abdi (who everyday in Mogadishu, Somalia makes signs that read ‘Beautiful Mogadishu’ to remind citizens what has been lost), 2007, 2007, 30 x 34 inches. I would *love* a print of this to hang in casa swissmiss.

These cast-urethane handbags by Debra Franses Bean may not look practical, but they are actually table lamps.

Coke Wisdom O'Neal plays with perspective by posing life-sized people in a much larger-than-life framework.

Sea meets sky in Chris Lundy's world of waves.

Fashionable Ms. Pierrot - Latvia's Laura Liberte paints decorative masks.

Legs trump heads in Kevin Naylor's Devastating Angels series.
More at Art MoCo.
An exhibition and a series of lectures proposed by RYBN to recontextualize the crisis, its mediatic and politic strategies, on the topics of disaster, structural instability and financial markets mythologies continue