Design Touch: a show with surprise

27/11/2008 - 00:00
Author: Ukeboy
Japan
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Touch Design is a Japanese Art event (or perhaps it is better to say competition), held for the first time last year. Although in 2007 has been a success, this year everything was just fantastic. Above all ... originally!

Maybe some of you, who more and who less, has already noticed even if only once those weird masterpieces exposed inside contemporary art museums, which strangely represented various things and complex humans. Original masterpieces with no doubt.
But noone of you could ever imagine which record they reached recently, astral year 2008!

Into a competition organized by the “Design Touch”, called "Japanese New Souvenirs", which was set at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub between October 23rd and November 3rd, a few indusrial designers asked their participants to express the Japanese culture creating new souvenirs shapes and obviously artists coming from every region of this wonderful isle didn't take much to show off they're genius. How? Just a moment, be patient...

The exhibition of the winning artworks has just finished, and a few photos are already "falling from the sky", on the net, so much is curiosity to see the originality of certain items .

Eleven participants have been rewarded, not only by a generous check for their creativity, but also with the promise that they will be supported by the Tokyo Midtown (Design Hub) with the sale of their works. In my opinion, I'll be impressed if i find something like that stuff on sale, but at last i'd be impressed also if i see those famous shops where people tries vibrators without any problem.
So why can't we think that those wonders of ingenuity will be placed on the shelves of a certain “Nipponic ikea”?

These are some of the winning artworks:

Bonsai Vinile

Here you are, a really interesting "homemade" bonsai. Also called Air-bonsai (in Wabisabi style), this interesting item is the fusion of the old japanese tradition of the bonsai grow up with the pop-art, that gains day by day new fans and appreciations. The material used to make it is soft and light vynil.

Maschera baffi

Can you imagine the known mustaches of the businessman of anime? Those inevitable faschion mustaches that every serious and scrupleless contractor must have not to be a castaway by the high-finance society! Well, this is an homage, given by Mariko Takeuchi to those untiring workers, to those businessmen that make Japan be one of the most developed and blooming countries of the World.
The mustache is a "communication media", that you can use to make your interlocutor know about your seriousness be seen by the others as a psychopathic!

Kutsu kutsushita

The next one in the showcase will be explained to our new buyers with the slogan “Elegance wears Original!”

These – wonderful – socks, called "Kutsu-kutsushita" (shoe-sock) represent the union of the traditional japanese ankle sock and the necessity of wearing shoes even when they're fim at the door! You will also be able to walk without shoes inside home without be awaited by your parents, in front of the dining room, who want you to wear slippers... oh, i didn't tell you anything uh! :)

Confess! Maybe you boys don't but girls who “abuse” of beauty creams have already found the make-up beside these kabuki-esque masks. But they're obviously worth to cover your face when you're waiting for the cream to dry!

The pragmatism of these use-and-throw away papers is, besides to cover your face fullfilled with orrible cream to avoid to scare your friends, in its original property of making you look like a perfect japanese kabuki actor!

There are other artworks i didn't show you - not because they don't reserve to but because i have mercy for you and i know this article has gone too far – and they are tangled and perfumed incenses with original shapes tinted with various color from cherry flower pink to sun yellow, hope green; the red paper holder that can transform a pile of white sheets in a Japanese flag (clever, simply clever) and a serie of glasses inspired by Hokusai's masterpiece “36 sights of Mt. Fuji” (maybe photography specialists have heard about it), 139 pieces of glass, any of them with a peculiar property so you can enjoy Mt. Fuji seasons exploring new drinks and new kinds of drinking glasses.

You can easily find the other winning works, not mentioned here at this part of Tokyo Midtown.

This time I will try to help you to avoid to drive you mad at reading japanese giving you a hint: to quickly translate use google or babelfish tool, alternatively copy and paste your kanjis here and translate from there.. well, good luuucketeeee! :D

See you to LaLiHo next!