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:

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:

I first heard of Kogoro Kurata through his steampunk laptop. Now the guy is making massive armed robots and this giant hand you see here. If his scale continues to grow at this rate, plan on Godzilla’s new nemesis by next summer.

All links through the venerable Engadget

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.”

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 in to a local convenient store yesterday and saw this staring me in the face:

This is the graphic on some blue soda Suntory is selling under the name “Bingo Bongo.” It is SUCH a rip-off of the almighty J.R. “Bob” Dobbs of the Church of the Subgenius

Hail Bob. I wonder if the CotSG knows?? Or if they care? I doubt it. The Subgenius worship the absurd, and this bottle graphic (Pineapple head, eye-patch, etc) would rank high on their absurd-o-meter.

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

PingMag is running an interesting interview with 21_21 Design Sight director Naoto Fukasawa.

I wonder why they’re running it so late. I mean, they mostly talk about the awesome Chocolate show they just put on, but the exhibit closed last weekend. Hmm.

Japanese farmers in the town of Inakadate Aomori Prefecture create some amazing crop art in their rice fields. The works should be visible until harvest in September.
http://www.am.askanet.ne.jp/~tugaru/z-inakadate.htm

Link via Pink Tentacle