I’m still blown away at how over the top Hello Kitty Puroland was. As I said before, I was expecting an excruciating day of rusty bumper cars and chiffon colors, but was shocked to find a technicolor Vegas acid trip instead. You’d have psychedelic Cirque du Soleil moments like this:

And then absurd battles with cheeseburgers the next:

Then there was this forest-themed toilet.

See that sign to the left? It’s pointing to an outhouse with a freaking ANIMATRONIC BEAR taking a dump! (While humming/grunting “Home on the Range,” no less). Don’t believe me? Checkit:

Apparently, in Kittyland, bears DON’T shit in the woods. Well actually, that’s not entirely true – there seemed to be some kind of bears-relieving-themselves-in-nature theme going on in murals on the walls.

Am I lying? And can someone please tell me what the hell that organ grinder monkey is doing?

I checked out the Hitotsubo Photography Exhibition at Guardian Garden this morning, and now wished I had seen it earlier so I could have recommended it for this week’s upcoming HYPTYO list (Closes Thursday, Sep 6th) . I’m not usually a fan of art competitions (you could argue that as an oxymoron, actually), but the photography here was great. Each artists was given 1.82 x 1.82m space to show their photographs. Most were interesting, but one of my favorites was Susumu Shimonishi:

It’s a simple idea: travel the world with a remote shutter release, capturing self portraits in various places (Istanbul, NYC, Disneyland).

But may fave part is at the top left corner of his space. Called “I Am On the Air,” that’s exactly what it is: him with a camera behind TV reporters in Tokyo, Sapporo, Sendai, etc.

Another favorite was Yosuke Ashida geometric train designs:

He filmed trains at Shinjuku Station for 6 minutes, printed them, cut them out and then made the above design. A closeup:

We rented a car this weekend to take the kids to a farm in Chiba, but when it rained, we needed an alternative. My wife suggested Sanrio Puro-land, home of the Hello Kitty overload. “I know, I know,” she said, “but it’s indoors, ok?” Normally, this would be grounds for divorce, but I had a headache and my mother was visiting, so I played along.

I am SO glad I did. The kitsch was completely off the charts. Every inch was covered in syrupy cuteness. I was expecting to spend hours waiting in lines for run-down amusement park rides, but Puroland is basically shows full of glittery dance routines somewhere between a Vegas floorshow, a Miyazaki film and that friendly village in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We were right up front, next to the unicorns and jugglers:

I was damn-near giddy, giggling as I walked around snapping shots of every little bizarre detail: Kitty dancers in black pleather mini-skirts; walls painted like library with book titles such as “Pyramids are our Friends” and “Is sound Pink?”; a forest-themed toilet with an animatronic bear taking a dump. Every so often I got self-conscious and though I shouldn’t find this place so fascinating. Then I bumped into a pierced-up gaijin punk, and we both gave a knowing nod. Now I understand why goths have their own day at Disneyland.

There were more than a few japanese teen goths at Puroland, too, but my fave was this guy:

More Kitty reports to come as I sort thru clips and pics. Goth day link lovingly relayed via Boing Boing

Ping Magazine has a great interview with Richie Hawtin:
A lot of what we do with Minus stems from my kind of experiments with sounds, like what I did with the Plastikman albums. When working with sound, and as my songs don’t contain too much information, I kind of visualise them and place them in a three-dimensional space. For me, to fully understand how these sounds interact physically or in these virtual spaces is to go and see another artist’s representation: standing in front of a Rothko or walking around a sculpture of Serra, go towards his huge pieces of metal and get the weight of the situation. That enables me sometimes to formulate a musical idea. It’s a way connecting to our sonic expression…

Full interview is here

Hawtin also talks about collaborating with visual artist Ali Demirel, who mostly does the VJing and video work for Hawtin and his label minus, and blew the crowd away at Metamorphose this weekend. See some of Demirel’s work here.

Special Bonus, Richie Hawtin documentary:

Ambient devices like the Beacon to the left deliver information in a soft, subtle way. Think about a wall clock or speedometer – you don’t concentrate on it, but merely glance at it occasionally. Ambient Orbs do the same thing: relay information from your periphereal vision. They were originally designed to follow your stock portfolio (red = bad, green = good), but as Clive Thompson points out in Wired, they can be programmed to follow the weather, pollen count, sailing conditions in your area, or more interestingly, monitor your energy consumption.

Or you could just rock out to the Eagles:

Sunday’s Japan Times had a feature on the awesome rice field paintings we wrote about a few months ago.

Apparently, time is running out to see them in full detail because:

…now in August, the lengths of each kind of rice are different due to their different growth rates. Now, we cannot clearly see the drops falling off the waves, as the yellow rice for the drops is shorter than Tsugaru Roman. So by now the drops have begun sinking into the green background of the Tsugaru Roman.”

A great collection of time lapse clips from the PinK Tentacle .

I have always really loved these simple, yet expressive Stop Motion Studies from David Crawford.

In David’s own words:

“It is said that 90% of human communication is non-verbal. In these photographs, the body language of the subjects becomes the basic syntax for a series of animations exploring movement, gesture, and algorithmic montage. Many sequences document a person’s reaction to being photographed by a stranger. Some smile, others snarl, still others perform. Some pretend not to notice. Underneath all of this are assumptions and unknowns unique to each situation.”

Vuk Cosic made these video game-inspired flags. Man, I gotta renew my passport. And does this mean my kids will have citizenship (and bonus points) in both Nipong AND AmericaInvaderz?

Via We Make Money Not Art

I went to see the Punk Yukatas at Point Gallery yesterday. These are my pics, but PingMag has better images and info HERE. Great patterns (leopard skin, lips, chains, etc).

The Obis on sale were the coolest, tho. Checkit:

The bottom one? That’s images of a fish market:

Pretty ballsy, as is this beer mug chain medallion. Or how about a mini-steak or gyoza?

The fan in this guy’s jacket may look cheesey, but I think in this heat/humidity, you’d get over that fashion discrepancy quick. And hey, it even makes you look buff!

The venerable art/design e-rag, Ping Mag, is plugging a really interesting event at POINT gallery in Ebisu.

I’m gonna head down and check out the punk yukata on sale and maybe snack on some food creations. You should, too.

It goes through the weekend: Saturday, (Aug 18) from 16:00-24:00 and Sunday (Aug 19) from 15:00-22:00

A map here

Mr. Funkalicious has an interesting bit on the new 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center. The design is beautiful, but there’s something about it that makes me thirsty…