Hello (in Taiwanese)
that's all I know in Taiwanese
So let me speak in Japanese from here on
I'm Ishiguro from Tokyo
Thank you for having me today
I have many slides I want to share with you
They will be shown at a bit of quick pace
I've been selected to talk about "Play"
and I'm quite happy about that.
I'm happy because
my work process begins with play
and the by-product of that
turns into work, product or art piece.
I play with many different things: see these 3 fields
One is design, another art, another is stage device.
I play in many ways at these three fields
In art, pursue pure aesthetics, playing
In design, learn about many aspects of daily living
And in stage, research/play
about the humans in many interesting ways
Okay, next
This is my office, it's like a factory
When playing, as soon as I have an idea, or "Aha!",
I try to start shaping them into real "thing" within 30 minutes
This place is complete with tools and machines
that enable me to do that.
The place is cramped, messy, but to me, it is like a heaven.
Even if I think of something late at night
tools, materials, most of things are here
I could give my idea a real shape
So what kind of things come out of this place?
Here are my works.
This is the first one
It's called "Ash Sculpture"
It's a sculpture made of ash
It's made of incense
It's in the shape of Tokyo Tower, made of incense
This isn't a completed work at this point
It's to be lit with fire, burned,
Then to be enjoyed by reviewing the remaning ash
This is the Diet building
With the Diet building, do the same
Now we'll play the video, of this shown on a TV program
When lit, it burns slowly,
and ash at first is in the original shape
The enjoyment is to watch the burning process like this
Now we'll play the video again
and experience the beauty of it
This video shows it better
It's lit up like the other one
Wait for it to slowly burn
And enjoy
What I wanted to express here
Japanese appreciate the beauty of fleeting moment called "hakanai"
Beauty in fragility
I wanted to express such fragile beauty in my work
If you move the burned ash for even just a little bit
It would crumble down
I wanted to create something that would
make it precious because of its fragility
To draw out maternalistic feelings, desire to protect
Another thing is
the beauty of the moment
when material transforms from one thing into another
By burning
thing that was blue turns into white
Back to pure ash
It is to experience that process
and the beauty of the phenomina
As you can see it is a tiny work
Details in scale of 0.1 mm can be recognized
I will demolish it now
Some people will feel reluctant to burn it
But I think more can be gained through burning it
Here it goes!
I'll destroy it, 3, 2, 1,
Well, was it beautiful?
Okay, next
Next is about playing with colors
It's about conducting experiments with colors
I worked with Fuji Film on this research
It was a project creating new thing using technology
Different liquids in 3 primary colors are in it
When flat, it looks like this
When lifted up, it goes back to 3 primary colors
No matter how you try mixing it, it will not mix
because the liquids are of special different substances
And look at the beautiful patterns and colors
No matter how many times you do it
Both the colors and patterns change
you will not get tired of it
CG's re-create this kind of thing a lot
But to see it happening in reality through liquid was so beautiful
What we discovered here is that
a single color is boring
over 3 colors become ugly
Mixture of about 2.5 colors are
the most beautiful, have harmony
Continue on with more plays
This was about research on pop-up book
I wanted to communicate in analog expression
amidst the currently popular, common digital 3D
It is a research in how to create things in analog way
I created 3 books, this one is about a tree
Winter
spring and
summer
On this summer page
birds actually fly wildly
It's being displayed over there, so please take a look
This book is called "Fruits"
When you open the page
a fruit would appear
and aroma is released
Aroma release mechanic is placed inside of this
That's how you'll catch the waft of mellon smell
But with this one, you'll catch the waft of banana smell
This book is called "Amused"
When opened, this complicated scene appears
Somehow, they move
I was experimenting with it, and it happened by accident
I didn't create it, didn't plan for it
when playing this kind of 'accident' happens
I'm always looking out for it in creation work
This is also displayed in this building
so if you are interested, please take a look
And the product that came as result the of all this
is called "Book of Light"
This piece is currently being sold as a product
This product is being sold in Taiwan too
Before going to sleep, if you would open up the book
A lamp appears
Real usable lamp appears, and actually lights up
There are two types, this one is called "Street Light"
This type is called "Lamp Shade"
Open this one slowly like you did the other, and a lamp appears
It's usable lighting
So before going to sleep, tell stories to a child
And when done, close the book, put it away in the bookshelf
These acts are tied together into a product with wonderful story
Okay moving right along
This is a case study of playing with phenomenon
Phenomenon
This thing is
an art piece set outside
When I started on this project
the sky was overwhelmingly beautiful
I started to think of creating something
that would augment the beauty of this sky
That strange thing you can see at the center of the screen
is the art device
Here's how it will
augment the blueness of the sky
As you can see
By shooting up the smoke ring into the sky
we are creating a contrast to the blue sky
And when the blue can be seen at the center of it
enjoyment of the beauty of the color blue intensify
That's why I made this device
That device evolved a little
into this version
Better looking, isn't it?
I think it's sleeker
The trap door opens nicely
This is located in western Japan, Fukuoka prefecture
The device is used for advertisement attraction
for a ring shop
Outside of the front of the shop
a smoke ring is sent upwards up every 3 minutes
I was told that it's effective
as an advertisement
I told you earlier that
I gain design ideas when I play
Using that
I created this humidifier
Currently this humidifier is one of the best sellers in Japan
It is called "Chimney"
Mist comes out of the top of the chimney
Its appearence has healing effect
And through the mist
your heart heals also
Please remember, this product came as result
of the previous experiments
This is really the most important part
Well, maybe not so important
I haven't shown you any performance art case yet
So here are the performance art cases
This one is called "Hiten" project
Do you know what "Hiten"means?
It means "angel", flying angel
Asian version of flying angel
We experimented to see what happens
if we conducted a real performance
My mother is a dance choreographer
This project was collaboration with
my mother and a few other people on the team
The video you see here
uses no special effect whatsoever
What can be done when
the airplane is free falling for 18 seconds
We chartered an airplane for 3 days
and re-did the interiors
and did the performance, recorded it
This is exactly how it looked.
We haven't done anything to the video
no faking, no CG, no slow motion
You can tell the difference, can't you?
The difference between the real and the CG
You probably notice the reality of the movements
I was on the free falling airplane too, working
sprinkling these things
Can you understand it? Free falling?
When the airplane was free falling
we achieved about 10 seconds of zero gravity
When it's over these all fall down
It can bee seen behind it a little bit
This grew into next to the performance
done inside the international space station
It was probably the first ever human dance performed in the space
Kind of messy looking
but it's inside the space station
Japanese astronaut here
Koichi Wakata danced for us
Strange recording, isn't it?
But you can see here
how beautiful the human and human clothes
Machines in surrounding are ugly looking
The zero gravity play I experienced in this project
was very valuble for me
Isn't it beautiful?
This is the real view into what he was actually doing
No cheating whatsover
These are flowers made of paper that I made at my office
He blows at it
that's all he is doing, but they move so very beautifully
It's because he is actually doing it, is playing for real
So the analog things
Things we create using our own hands, to play
are so interesting and important
They always turn into something meaningful
Here at the end, I have an announcement
At the Fubon Art Festival going on right now in Taipei
my newest art work is being shown
This is
showen at Akuma Cafe
When you open this book, a flower pops up
A butterfly on the flower flaps its wings for a while
I would be happy if you would be interested and visit the place
This brings me to the end of my presentation
I would like to add, that if you would play throughout the process
interesting things emerge as you are go through
Enjoyment is important
Really want to thank you for having me here today
Thank you (in Taiwanese)