closed Mame, a fond farewell. [*eats&sweets]
" Minami-Aoyama Mame " , Japanese traditonal sweet shop, was opened
at 3 years ago on a back steet in Aoyama.
An old house was renovated for the shop.
But the house has gone decrepit and they decided to move the location.
Mame means "bean".
Bean is one of the important food stuff for traditional Japanese foods.
Good old Japanese ate rices, vegetables, beans and fishes, didn't take meats.
And they used boiled sweet beans for the sweet.
They found variety of the usage of a bean.
Mame was closed today at once, and they'll move to near the old shop at this October 1st.
A lot of the people standed in line at Mame, today and yesterday.
At first Mame was not famous.
But their simply and natural taste gained a growing reputation.
Today, you see that some peoples prowl to find Mame shop at back street in Aoyama.
I can't wait to go their new shop!
View Larger Map
# 南青山 まめが一時閉店しました。あたらしいお店は10月からだそうです。おつかれさま。
Minami-aoyama Mame
http://www.mamemame.info/
Party tomorrow ! at Lexington Aoyama [*my_design&event]
And tomorrow, 17th June, is the party day.
Don't miss it :-)
Kuroda-san reported the event,
SOON@Lexington Aoyama part-1. ( Written in Japanese )
Let's see it if you can't come the exhibition.
JDN: SOON@Lexington Aoyama part-1 Report
http://www.japandesign.ne.jp/HTM/REPORT/nippon_kagu/32/index2.html
skinny BMW [*gadgets]
Last year, I made a chair wrapped skinny video screen.
One of the difficulty is choice the screen's material.
It's needed not only stretch properties but enough restoring properties.
But more difficulty point was making effective design using the simple skinny line.
http://hgc.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2007-11-05
Last week, BMW showed us the GINA Design Visionary Model.
It have soft skinny designed body instead of the hard metalic material.
And change the shape with organic moving.
You can find that today's BMW design concept was started from the study,
GINA was made at six year's ago.
autoblog: BMW GINA Light Visionary Model revealed
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/10/bmw-gina-light-visionary-model-revealed/
soon was started. [*my_design&event]
The exhibition "SOON@Lexington Aoyama " is produced by Sachio Hihara.
It will be continued to January 2009, for 6 months.
The exhibition is separated in 6 parts
and change the exhibitor at each part.
I'm participating the first part started at last week end.
Now I'm showing two chairs, share chair 05 (the first chair) and 06 (large chair).
http://hgc.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2007-11-27
The party will be at 17 June. Come on!
It's been a pleasure to join with such as famous genius designers:-)
Kenichiro Oomori
http://www.diana.dti.ne.jp/ken-o/e.htm
Isamu Tokizono
http://www.brave-design.com/
Atsushi Nogimura
http://www.geocities.jp/nogimuracompany/
Sachio Hihara
http://www.sachio.jp/
Filo di Seta
http://www.world.co.jp/brand/filodiseta.html
View Larger Map
My first GEISAI. [*my_design&event]
GEISAI is Japanese Art event produced by Takashi Murakami, Contemporary artist.
It was expected to attract about 10 thousand visitors.
The Event have no audition for the exhibiting.
Any you can join the event, even pay the booth charge.
The feature make it as a asian chaotic atmosphere, not looks like a gallery.
My exhibits was here,
Balloon Screen :
Projected Video image to the inside of the layerd Balloon, by LED Light Video Projector
share chair 07 :
That's same chair at last year's Tokyo Designer's week.
But last sunday, I focused to the Video Screen function
to be felt the experience to sit down at the video image.
LEGO VJ :
Generated Video image at then and there by LEGO brick and small camera.
That was the first time to exhibit such as media oriented works for me.
And the system was not working well. I lost the exhibiting time for the maintenance.
But I could enjoy.
BTW, One of the Event's feature was The audition.
They place exhibitors in the orders by their judgements, and show us our each ranks.
My lank is 240/600. Not bad, but not good...
This year's Exhibition. [*my_design&event]
In This year, I'll not make new chair but I make more media using things.
My first GEISAI was at last sunday. ( sorry, already ended. )
And next Event GEISAI #11 willl be at september,14 .
Don't miss the next!
This is Balloon Screen Test Movie.
I tryed to project the video image behind the Balloon to inside.
GEISAI.net
http://www2.geisai.net/
air piano toy [*sounds&dance]
Many Japanese magazines appended a special supplement thing
to get their new readers.
" Sho-gaku-ichinen-sei " ( First grade Elementary school students )
magazine is published 277,000 copies every month.
And they add a toy finger piano instrument in their magazine at the April issue.
In other words, 270k children took the such as Cyber Musical Instrument,
means every 4 Japanese first grade elementary school students got it!.
The name is " Anyware Finger Piano Do-Le-Mi-kun".
I got 2-units and played by hands.
I practiced hard :-)
WIRED geek dad: They Don't Include These In a Box of Cheerios
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/03/they-dont-inclu.html
the finger piano report (Japanese)
http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/comments/20080320_sho1/
Shogaku-kan ads page
http://adpocket.shogakukan.co.jp/67/
Bye, The future [*love & life]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/03/19/PH2008031900908.html
Our real may looks so fake for The 60's people,
And His written future was the real.
wikipedia : Arthur C. Clarke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke
The music is mightier than the sword. [*sounds&dance]
A musical battle event is popular at Dj or Hip hop rap event. But I never heard
about such as realtime track making battle using sampler machine.
That's may the first Realtime Sampler Battle in Japan ! ( in the world? ).
The rule is here.
1: Player can use any musical equipment. but you should put it in 120×45cm size table.
2: Player can use a prepared sound in your stock only one shot sound(ex. bass drum)
3: 3 players in each session.
4: In one set the session, 1st, free druming in 5 min at a time.
5: Next, DJ play time for 30 min. Player can sampring the sound and the phrase freely.
6: After that, play by turns. 5 min for each player.
I surprised that most of the player used AKAI MPC sampler with realtime PAD drumming,
and KORG KAOSS PAD Effector.
Such as equipment was often used at Hip hop truck making, and DJ Playing.
But the event may make a new category in a music.
BTW, a judge is "Hifana" at the battle.
I want to show you the Hifana performance instead of the sampler battle event.
Let's see.
wikipedia : Sampler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampler_%28musical_instrument%29
AKAI
http://www.akaipro.com/
This event's flyer( Japanese )
http://www.heavysick.co.jp/zero/cgi-bin/imgdiary/diary/bn2008_02.html#20080224
LEGOogle [*gadgets]
Last month, MIT Professor Michael Resnick came to Japan.
He is the researcher at the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT.
He developed legendary educational equipment to make the
creative spiral process of
imagine-create-play-share-reflect and return to imagine spiral.
and at last, created Lego Mindstorms Robotics system.
But I think, the Creative spiral is generated
to play original LEGO brick too.
In other words his LEGO system just expand it.
Last week - January 28, 2008 was
50th anniversary of the LEGO brick.
and google logo was laid LEGO!
http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html
Michael Resnick interview ( Japanese )
http://robot.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/news/2008/01/28/879.html
Cricket ( robotical educational toy system with handicraft on a Cute Design! )
http://www.picocricket.com/
Scratch ( Objective Visual Programming Language for children )
http://scratch.mit.edu/
Lifelong kindergarten
http://llk.media.mit.edu/
Geta Smith [*love & life]
When my working time, I'm wearing my Geta,
woody belt sandal, for this ten years.
But the belt ( called Hanao ) was in rags by the daily usage.
I tryed to find "Geta Smith" to repair it.
Long time ago, more shoe shop had hte Hanao repair service.
But today, we don't have enough opportunities to wear a Kimono with Geta,
and such as shop was decreased by the changing our lifestyle.
I wish more peoples use Geta more casually.
Fortunately,there was earlier generations shoe shop in my town,
and I could order to repair it.
I can keep to wear the Geta for ten more years.
last year's my chair and the transformation [*my_design&event]
I tried to take pictures of the transformation.
This is my chair, last year's share chair 06.
and the movie is here.
I was tired that's very heavy...
Incidentally, the picture is share chair 05 transformation
in the year before last. Let's see the difference.
blue tower [*my_pictures]
Blue coloured Tokyo Tower on the ealier christmas lights
at Keyaki-zaka street in Roppongi Hills.
That's for WORLD DIABETES DAY.
Over 100 landmarks lighted up in blue.
http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/wddgallery
You see the blue building at left side in the picture is
for Blue man Group performance.
Blue Man Group
http://www.blueman.com/
my latest chair in the wild. [*my_design&event]
This week, I showed my new transformable chair "share chair"
at Zero Exhibition in Tokyo Designer's Week.
Thank your comming to my demonstration space.
When you use the chair, you share your place and feeling
with your lovely people by the impressive interaction.
That's my concept.
And The new model have light up capable function.
You can put a light, Video projector and home planetarium inside the chair
to project the light to the cover. you can sit down at the light.
In the picture, I put Video projector with fisheye lenz
into the chair to project video images from the inside of the chair.
And I used PS3 to play the video.
That's the transforming Demo. Thank you and Enjoy!
