The ASAHI newspaper takes a look at the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival.
Think of film festivals and chances are places like Cannes, Berlin and Venice immediately spring to mind. Tokyo, however, probably doesn’t-though by all rights, it should.
Believe it or not, the annual Tokyo International Film Festival, which opens Oct. 23 this year, ranks among the world’s 12 major film festivals. It’s not a household name because it has never had a strong identity. Since its establishment in 1985, the festival has had a heck of a time pleasing the public, let alone the film industry.
As usual, I’m not planning on seeing anything. Tickets are just too expensive.
A typical Japanese scene:
Ken Kawakita is sitting on his living room floor, checking train schedules on the Internet, using a laptop computer running Windows over a wireless AirPort from Apple Computer. His son, Taro, 11, is downloading a game on his iBook over the same network, while daughter, Mari, 13, converses with a friend by e-mail over her mobile phone on KDDI’s “au” network.
Takao, Ken’s wife, has a mobile phone on the table near her hand, although she is not using it at the moment. Like her daughter’s and many others in Japan, its carrying strap is decorated with trinkets, showing the affectionate place they hold as a personal item. Daughter Hanna, 8, is asleep on the couch, but she could easily be surfing the Internet on her Mac.
Mari has been using her Casio clamshell cellphone all evening, playing games and taking photographs in addition to having her phone e-mail conversations. Ken, 39, who has a second-generation i-mode phone, says it offers more functions and services than he needs and is too complicated for him. When he sends a photo from his telephone, he just asks Mari. On the other hand, he very naturally checks out the Tokyo traffic congestion on his phone while driving to Yokohama.
Read the rest of the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE article here.
I’ve walked in front of the Shigoto Cafe Torabayu (it’s located where the TDB’s Parking 246 event space was being held), and quickly peeked inside. Seems like a nice idea.
A huge wall painting of Mt. Fuji, in the style of one you might see in a public bath, looms over throngs of young job hunters in Shigoto Cafe Torabayu, an employment information center in Tokyo’s trendy Omotesando district.
The facility was opened recently by Recruit Co. to mark the overhaul of its job information magazine Torabayu, and to provide a space for job hunting in the kind of relaxing atmosphere you might expect to find at a public bath. In fact, the Mt. Fuji painting was executed by 69-year-old bathhouse painter Kiyoto Maruyama.
Read the rest of the DAILY YOMIURI article here.
DAILY YOMIURI article based on a lecture given by English designer Terrence Conran in Roppongi Hills last week. I’m just surprised that Habitat, the lifestyle store chain started by him, has yet to open any shops in Tokyo.
The new issue of ART iT (5) is out! It takes a look at the Korean art scene.
There will be launch party for KUHAKU at the Pink Cow on November 11. Some of the artists and writers from the book will be on hand for signing copies and readings. The event is from 7 to 11. Remember that you can buy copies of the book directly from the Chin Music Press site.
I headed out late in the afternoon with Jesper to Ginza, where we started at the Ginza Graphic Gallery and the Sugiura Kohei exhibition. I can’t say that I was overly excited by it, but there were some striking cover designs that showed a very strong sense of graphic continuity. Following this, we quickly stopped at the hpgrp building to see what was going on at the Hanna gallery, and then made our way to the Matsuya Ginza department store for the “Tokyo Night Scape 2050” exhibition. It ends up that it’s mostly theoretical (I was mostly expecting visual designs), and I couldn’t really appreciate much of it as it was Japanese-only.
The obligatory stop at the Apple Store (especially packed) then lead to Muji Yurakucho, where we had dinner at Meal Muji. This was my first visit since the big re-opening, and I must say that changes were kept to a minimum. You get a larger Meal Muji, and more space on the 3rd floor dedicated to home furnishings, which is what Muji is really pushing this year. Under construction on the first floor is a showcase house, part of the Muji+Infill project.
The plan was then to head to Shinjuku for a bit of shopping, but as we got to Meguro station on the Yamanote, we decided to get off and finally give the Claska Hotel (with the Transit produced Lobby) a visit. After a bit of confusion, we were then on the right track after Jesper’s great idea to enter a hotel and ask for directions. The Lobby is definitely very nice (think WALLPAPER magazine), and I quite enjoyed sipping a shochu while resting on the comfortable leather sofas, but it couldn’t be at a worse location. It took a good 20-30 minutes to walk from the station. As much as I’d like to go again, I can’t see myself making that trek very often.
Last Sunday was marked by a bash at the Swedish embassy for Swedish Style that started with extreme fun in the embassy gardens with a sound installation and performance in the pool, and ended with the after-party that took place up high on a deck overseeing the city. The sound piece saw a bunch of speakers equipped with phones that let you record a sound bite, and then have it play continuously. It was fun trying to create soundscapes by producing different sounds/beats in the various phones, and trying to see what came out of it. As for the pool performance, I only caught a glimpse of it (before heading to another part of the embassy), but what I saw were very well dressed people swimming/dancing underwater, with the whole thing being projected on one of the embassy walls (pictured above).
Shots taken with the AU W21S mobile phone.
Jean Snow is a contributor to 
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of 
