July 17, 2006
Bushwick Arts Project - BAPLab
BAP will be hosting the first in a series of programs entitled the “BAPLab” taking place on July 22nd 2006. Showcasing well known artists side by side with emerging artists, the Lab’s purpose is to expose both audience and artists alike to the vast spectrum of digital culture. Located at 3rd Ward, in the outer edges of Bushwick, the Lab is an experimental event where artists are encouraged to explore new paths and investigate new ideas through a curated program of electronic music, video, sound installations and interactive works.
Part exhibition, part creative R&D program, the BAPLab is a festival of ideas. An environment where artists can explore new approaches to creative expression.
Posted by richard ting at July 17, 2006, 05:15 PM
July 10, 2006
INDIVI Fashion Brand Installation
Big up to Yzabelle Munson for this story.
This award-winner was an outdoor media advertisement using a huge 10.8 m x 3.65 m mirrored space to present the latest collection from World’s INDIVI fashion brand. Just walking alongside, passersby could “try on” various outfits in the mirror. It was a “wearable advertisement” designed to pull shoppers into a wonderland, allowing them to ascertain the fit of the clothes in a way not possible just looking at them in a magazine or store. The installation was given high marks for its novel idea that extended the possibilities of the media, the additional hype it won through widespread publicity, and the contribution it made to increasing INDIVI’s sales.
Posted by richard ting at July 10, 2006, 08:02 PM
July 04, 2006
Tokyo Media Immersion
[from nytimes.com]
In Tokyo, the New Trend Is 'Media Immersion Pods'
ALL cities takes a toll, and at times all city dwellers have to take their leave. When life in Istanbul gets too stressful, people can head to the baths. In Rio there's the beach. In Tokyo, though, the antidote to urban overload is more of the same. In the world's most media-saturated city, people take a break by checking themselves into media immersion pods: warrens cluttered with computers, TV's, video games and every other entertainment of the electronic age.
The Bagus Gran Cyber Cafés are Tokyo's grand temples of infomania. Situated well above retail level, on the odd floor number where in Manhattan you might find tarot readers or nail salons, these establishments contain row after row of anonymous cubicles. At first glance the spread looks officelike, but be warned: these places are drug dens for Internet addicts.
The first Gran Cyber Café opened in 1999. Today there are 10, serving some 5,000 people a day. Each has a slightly different orientation — some are geared to teenagers, some to salarymen — but the atmosphere is the same throughout the franchise: equal parts lending library, newsstand, arcade, Kinko's and youth hostel. An inspired extension of the basic Internet cafe, the Gran Cyber Cafés shift their meaning the more you study them, as if by a trick of their trademark low light.
Sometimes they look like nothing special, only marginally cooler than carrels you might find at a college library. But at other times, especially late at night, they seem visionary, an architectural realization of the social and personal life of the future.
Read more.
