On Sunday I cycled over to Miashima, where the Hundertwasser designed waste treatment plant is located, for the Mai-asia music festival. Despite the weather having been good all week it decided to take a change for the worse just for festival day and rained heavily for most of the day.
Despite the bad weather, everyone donned their brightly coloured raincoats and continued to enjoy the day. I had primarily come to see Takkyu Ishino play, for the second time this year but enjoyed many of the other acts as well. Surgeon was especially good, as was Oorutaichi who I haven't seen play for some time. Dancing in the rain in the evening kind of added an intensity to Surgeon and Takkyu's set and I went home exhausted, drenched but thoroughly satisfied!
It's festival time in Night Town! Somewhere in the world there lies a great forest, hidden away in this forest grows a tree of unknown age. The inhabitants of this tree appear visible to the human eye only once every 23 years when they hold a festival to celebrate something long forgotten.
I have just completed this personal piece of work called 'Jellicity'. I thought that 'jellicity' would be a real word, referring to how jellified something was (similar to elasticity), but apparently not. So next time you make some jelly and a friend comments upon its lack of jellicity, you know where the term comes from. Additionally it can refer to, as in this case, a city inside a jellyfish.
I recently created these designs for an article in a free paper called .Dock (an abbreviation of Document of Creativity in Kobe). .Dock is a paper that documents design related activities in Kobe, a city appointed a City of Design by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
The article by Bianca Beuttel (a Kobe based designer-essayist) looks at the relationship between children and design.
Around 12 years ago I first heard music by Denki Groove. Although I couldn't understand their lyrics I could still sense their lighthearted attitude. Since that time I have longed to see them play live, a longing that was finally satisfied last week when they played at Zepp Osaka.
For anyone that is not familiar with their music, they are kind of like a high energy, humorous Kraftwerk or YMO. This sense of humor carries over into their videos, artwork and live shows.
Although they are now a little less spritely (they are both 45) they still put on a great show, with high energy dance music interspersed with comedic routines and some impressive visuals.
Looking forward to seeing them play again (as they joked, probably when they reach a combined age of 100!)
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