OOITO blog

During the hiatus from Pigeon Express, we've been preparing the new OOITO blog with background info and updates, and plans for art and music news. Have a look, and Happy New Year!

Season’s greetings

A lot of lucky people are off for the next 10 days...
Happy holidays to you all!

ChowPourian Studio

Huschang and I have joined forces to become ChowPourian Studio, as reflected in the intro info, left. While the new site is under construction, updates will be posted here.

Unintentional chindogu

New post at OFD. Sometimes simple is best.

Exhibition news & views

Due to the seasonal crunch, the OOITO/Rezidents exhibit will run until December 24. The show of personal work which was scheduled for this week has been postponed.

Mind over matter

Last week at Open for Design, Futurefarmers posted an entry called Senseless about Crispin Jones' An Invisible Force. Their description brought me back to the BankArtLife reception in Yokohama almost exactly a year ago. Jones was showing a table alongside work by a number of other artists, all of which was kinetic and/or interactive and tactile. A constant queue of people were ready to be challenged by Painstation , the sadistically entertaining work by two German media artists, Volker Morawe and Tilman Reiff.

As with An Invisible Force, the point of Painstation is endurance against discomfort. Two players face off in a game of Pong, right hand on the controller, left hand on a sensor unit. Both players receive various distractions from the unit -- heat, whipping, electric shocks etc. As time goes on, the punishment intensifies. The first person to remove their hand from the sensor loses. The real game is who can withstand the most pain.

I lost every time. Despite the open wounds and blue welts some of the pros were sporting, with me the unit had not even escalated to the point of inflicting pain. Of course being a leftie put me at a disadvantage because the controller forced me to use my weak hand. But in truth the reason I lost was that the anticipation of the being touched by the whip made me flinch.

OOITO x th’ Rezidents

Monday is the start of a two-part exhibition I'll be doing with Huschang Pourian. Part one is a joint show for OOITO and th’ Rezidents, on till December 17.


Part two will begin the following Monday (December 18) with more details to come later.

The venue is Café Pause, where I participated in Canadian Style earlier this year, curated by Jean Snow.

We'll be there on Friday from 7 to 10pm. Please drop by if you're in town!

Virtual Haptic-ness

December marks the start of a new theme at Open For Design: touch. My first post on this topic talks about the strikingly tactile world of LocoRoco.

Fantastic plastic

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, my post this week at Open For Design is up early. About me, gachapon, and how plastic has heart.

Designboom Mart report

Designboom's photo report of the Mart at 100% Design Tokyo is online, with links for individual booths. Here's the link to mine.

Site update

I wanted to make some functional adjustments to my website, and multi-maker Johan Rooms made it happen. Thanks Johan!

Open for Design

In the hullabaloo of events the past few weeks, I neglected to mention the new online project I've joined as a weekly style blogger, updating on Thursdays (Fridays in Japan).

Open for Design launched on November 1 as a multidisciplinary dialogue about contemporary design in the form of a blog, sponsored by MSN and Infiniti. The format consists of monthly themes with feature stories and bi-weekly blog entries by practising artists or designers in four categories: style, living, art and tech. The inaugural theme is "Craft: The resurgence of the human hand in a mass-market world." Check it out.

A few views from the booth at 100% Design

It was a crazy week - exhausting but fun - filled with interesting people and nice stuff. Thank you to designboom, 100% Design and everyone who dropped by. Special thanks to Yuki, Yuko and Huschang.

Jean Snow meets th’ rezidents (above).











Birgit Lohmann from designboom (above).




Addendum Three more, courtesy of Designboom.

Chatting with Tom Dixon.

Woman inspecting Rezident Ginger, perhaps trying to decide whether she should let him tote her stuff around or cut him up and make him into a toy.

100% Design Tokyo

Today till Sunday at Jingu Gaien-Aoyama.
www.100percentdesign.jp

Here's the designboom crew yesterday during set-up: Massimo, Birgit, Andy, Anita and Dean.

Download this: Rezidents wallpaper for the PSP!

Let Th’ Rezidents block your menu from the prying eyes of your fellow commuters... Download the PSP wallpaper below!

Rezidents mania!

They’re multiplying! A peek behind the scenes...

25, 24, 23...

After blogging about Th’ Rezidents t-shirts made as a limited edition for the designboom mart at 100% Design Tokyo, word came that I can’t sell them there.

So... 25 shirts are up for grabs.
3,000 yen each + 500 yen for shipping.



Available in men’s and women’s small and medium sizes in both colour combinations.
Printed in Japan on soft 100% cotton, 6.2 oz. t-shirts.
Payment via PayPal. (Also by bank remittance if in Japan.)

If you’d like one, please email me with “rezidents t-shirts” in the subject line and specify size and colour.

Get ’em while they last...

Unplugged

I've been kind of off-line for the last few weeks: home for a wedding, laying down foundation for things to come, and doing a bit of gospel for ooito.

A few snaps from the trail...