http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/9/3004622/otaku-spaces-patrick-galbraith-manga-anime-review An interesting story on an American who is studying and theorizing the Otaku.
Hi here are some photographs from the show at the Granoff Creative Arts Center in Providence, RI for the 17th Annual William Weston Awards. The show is up until April 23rd, 2012.
I will be giving a short talk & making an installation.
17th Annual William Weston Awards
Here are two posters I created for the Brown University Library. The library is trying a new thing where librarians will stay later in the evening to be there when students are studying and may need help with research.
Here are some concepts I was working through:
Librarians After Dark Mock Up
This was my first iteration. I initially wanted the poster to be about getting outside of the 9 – 5 lifestyle and how the librarians were dedicated. After working on that idea I found that it became too much about the librarians and not enough about the benefits that students could get out of going to the workshop. So on the next iteration I ended up at the outer space idea. I sent the mock up over and it was approved.
Librarians After Dark Final
This image is quite layered. The image is of the Finn Reading Room. I got rid of the windows in the reading room and put an image of the world behind the library and I have outer space on the top of the poster. I wanted the poster to evoke the idea of exploration, possibility, and discovery. I also wanted the poster to be eye catching and the blue band on the bottom that says ‘Workshop Your Research’ to seem as if it was hovering in the space and I used a neon esque font to evoke the idea of space and night time. The next poster of the series was about Research Help.
I wanted the second poster to evoke the series of being on the edge and and the librarian’s ability to bring the student back to a state of balance. I used color stripes of blue and purple to give the poster a sense of static. I made it seem as if the dancers were on a tightrope (as many students can be in the daunting process of research) by placing angled black lines underneath the dancers. The black lines offset the static movement of the stripes. To give the poster a sense of depth I gaussian blurred the dancer holder the hand of the other dance. I used the color orange because I felt that it would capture the attention of students, and the posters will be in a variety of busy places. The only thing I would change about this poster is perhaps reverse the role of the male and the female and use an image of a person color.
Librarians After Dark Research Help
Finally! My art show is up! Will post more images later.
Doba Project 1
Closing Reception: Thursday 7 – 9 PM at List Art Center
Live Performance at 8:36 PM
I thought this article was good because it talked about how Uniqlo manages its Design team.
Music is very important to me and my work. Every month I am going to post what I have been listening too.
I found Cocoon Heroes – Maetrik’s album dope. The sounds of the synth are sometimes harsh, but the beat and the jive keep the album alive. The whole album has a progressive feel to it. I think I will be able to listen to this album until about April but after then I will get bored with it and probably rediscover it next year. Maetrik – Pressure
Philip Glass & Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach. Seminal classic I just discovered after reading this Pitchfork Article by the French duo Air. Listening to Glass I lose a sense of time and space. There is something special about this work that resonates with my musical history. When I think of the sound of Sufjan Stevens or The Dirty Projectors I hear Glass’ presence. 1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4.
Scuba Personality. This album is all over the place, but there is an energy and cohesion to it. My favorite track is Hope. It just gets me pumped, for what though? Kidding, but this is a solid. Not sure if this will last into March…
Mickey Moonlight - And The Time Axis Manipulation Corporation. The lyrics are quite liminal and bit progressive. There are some definite hits and mood makers. Not sure if this will last into March.
Interplanetary Music the references are funny.
I originally intended this to be a video blog about BAPE, but I think it might be better to put the text here first and do a video component later. Why video blog, because this is a lot of content well suited for that medium.
Destruction is necessary for progress. Today I want to explore BAPE also known as a Bathing Ape. Founded by NIGO in 1993 BAPE is a postmodern Japanese fashion brand. BAPE is the birth of the Japanese commodification process , street culture meeting high culture, and database consumerism. I will explain database consumerism in another video+post. I like NIGO a lot because he is a playful and honest marketing master with taste.
Nigo infront of KAWS' art, which Nigo commissioned.
A Brief History of BAPE
A universe built on destruction.
New discoveries are rooted in economics, disease, and genius. I think the BAPE story is somewhere between genius and economics. Economically the Japanese asset price bubble was happening in the late 80′s. Many estates were overvalued and the bubble popped in 1991. During the recession a space for cultural experimentation began to emerge in Harajuku. In the 1990′s Japan had a particular take on fashion. Fashion magazines were extremely popular, the Tokyo club structure had revived [meaning the young bought clothes, to be seen by others, and Japanese youth wouldn't mind spending $200 on a pair of shoes]. Harajuku began to feel like Paris, everybody who was somebody went to Harajuku to shop, to talk, to see what was up, and to see what was the next cool thing.
Enter NIGO
Before BAPE, NIGO would travel to America to get vintage goods [jeans, magazines, and American culture]. One of the Japanese looks back then was called Amekaji look, it was basically the way Japanese teenagers interpreted American style and dressed this way in Japan. Earlier I wrote on database consumerism, for me it is here where Nigo is building his sartorial database. In his trips to America listening to the music, eating at the waffle house, walking around the streets. I wish I could find more documentation about his experiences in America. In terms of American culture NIGO is a collector of Planet of the Apes memorabilia and it it is rumored this is why he chose to call his company A Bathing Ape. This begins to make sense if one keeps the database mindset (which I will later expound upon in another post).
Throughout his BAPE career NIGO charted new retailing concepts in the realm of street wear, the idea of the limited edition [Walter Benjamin would love this]. NIGO remains true to the streets by keeping an anti-populist outlook on things. He places value on the rationing and limitation of products and begins to redefine street wear, and what it means to be unique. NIGO is one of the first marketing geniuses who gets it (think SupremexLou Reed , fusing high culture with street culture) One tenet of NIGO’s marketing stratagem is collaboration with American icons.
Retail Experience
If you think the Apple store is revolutionary read about Masamichi Katayama of Wonderwall. His interior design’s were and still are way ahead of their time. Katayama is very special to me because he takes what could be an average in store experience and makes it become something luxurious and special, an experience… a memory. He and NIGO meet and click and together they create the instore BAPE experience. One tenet is that of scarcity and serenity, for example instead of having to choose from 3000 of the same t shirt of 3 different sizes, they only put one shirt out on the rack. This saves spaces and reduces clutter.
A recent NYTimes article on Katayama: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/fashion/18wonderwall.html
You have probably been in one of Katayama’s interior designs. In 2006 he designed the interior of Uniqlo in SOHO. I’ve been there a few times and its a fun place. Katayama wants “to create a town within a building” precise, fastidious, well proportioned, mania for reflective surfaces and misdirection. NIGO & Katayama share the same vision for things. I really think NIGO’s success and Katayama’s success and influences on the retail world are interconnected. Unlike the tradition retail experience, NIGO would only put out a few shirts and allow the store to have more space than traditional stores. Because of the Limited Edition mind set, goods would sell out and store would become a hang out space, networking space, and etc. Katayama took this idea further by building restaurants inside of stores (all pre Barnes and Noble cafe). The idea of a store having a hang out seems normal now… think Starbucks, Bookstore or any experience like that. Katayama also designed the colette store in Paris france, and took his “town within a building” way of design colette has a water bar. BAPE stores are beautiful and playful.
Competition x Collaboration
The reason I like BAPE so much is because NIGO had many ideas on consumerism and leadership. In Harajuku it was easy to take trips to each others creative offices leading to free flowing creative sessions. Imagine Steve Jobs & Bill Gates back in the day stealing each others ideas and what not. Sure it was bad but at the end of the day, all of society benefited! NIGO even had a recording studio in his offices. Talk about cool! The internet was booming… global village Marhsall McLuhan had predicted was happening and NIGO was their to capitalize on this experience as his business became more and more globalized, so did his collaborations. NIGO often could allow companies to tap into the Japanese market.
- Disney
- Pepsi 2001
- Kanye West
- Nintendo
- Marvel
- Murakami
- KAWS, Stash, Futura
- DC comics/Marvel
- BAPE’s eames chair
NIGOVISION, the japanification of hip hop visual culture, brand building with NIGO
NIGO had a recording studio in his company called APESOUNDS. APESOUNDS is cool because it collaborated with artists from overseas. Pharrell Williams led to other partnerships such as the Billionaire Boys Club and Ice cream. NIGO has a song in Tokyo Drift with his band Teriyaki Boyz (kind of silly naming, but you get it… and he’s in a movie for crying out loud!) He also collaborates with Kanye West in 2008.
NIGO marketed to everybody and built what I call the BAPEverse! — the collectable everything
- BAPEcafe, [Sarah Lerfel look at colette.fr's water bar]
- BAPEkids
- BAPEcuts
- BAPEgallery…
- BAPE STAs footwear (hugely successful, fun, cool designs)
Destruction+Future
In February 2011 the Chinese I.T group bought 90% of NOWHERE Inc. [BAPE'S parent company] for $2.8 million dollars, a true postmodern spectacle. Now the Chinese own a huge stake of what could be considered a true Japanese product, a piece of Japanese history. This is the stuff Arjun Appadurai speaks of in his fivescapes (where you have oriental culture consuming occidental culture as if they created it and vice versa). Today NIGO is 41 and will be the creative director for BAPE for the next two years. I am curious to see where BAPE goes and where NIGO will be. 41 is still very young.
So why is destruction necessary for progress? I think that if the Japanese bubble didn’t burst we might not have had the same ambitious BAPE.
That’s all for now, been wanting to get this off of my chest since January!
