From manga to anime to music, Japanese soft power, also known as “Cool Japan,” has captured the world’s attention. In the fashion world as well, the profound creativity of Japanese products has great potential on the international market. As a way of broadcasting Japanese fashion culture to the rest of the world, the government supports the Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo (JFW). Now in addition, tokyoeye has been established to further strengthen Japanese fashion businesses in the world’s fashion capitals.

tokyoeye is a project for supporting Japanese fashion brands in their expansion outside Japan. Taking “Cool Japan” and filtering it through a Tokyo perspective, several fresh, modern Japanese fashion brands have been selected for exhibition in either Paris or Shanghai. In cooperation with local showrooms and press, they will have the opportunity to appeal directly to buyers, press, and consumers.

The goal is to support brands with potential that are planning to extend their business overseas.

Together with a showroom in Paris and industry press, creators will have the opportunity to show their collections directly to professional buyers, to the public and to the press. Several brands already successful in Japan have been chosen by the selection committee.

Two commercial events are scheduled : the “corner” of Colette from February 15th to 27th, 2010 and TRANOÏ SHOWROOM from March 4th to 11th, 2010.

In fact, all that is there is merely a doorknob, meant only for opening the door.

However, despite having no lock, this door is not without security features.

How can this be? It is just that stereotypes have driven design such that we associate “security” with having a lock.Perhaps it was just our childhood selves that think doors can open easily.

Rather than the stereotypical door, we have designed a door where a physical lock is unnecessary by changing the stereotypical image of the door.

The only way to forcibly enter is to destroy the door.

That is our “lock.” And with this new “lock,” a new door is designed.

The food and drinks served at a party are as important as the party itself. For opening parties, say to launch an exhibition, even more so. It’s integral. But few event producers think in this integrated way. The food and drinks on offer should be a reflection of the essence of the exhibition. What guests put in their mouth is an equally valid creative expression of art – only temporary!

So to celebrate the recent lighting of the Parco Christmas tree and corresponding Motion + Design + Magic exhibition by renowned visual artist Masaru Ozaki, everything was themed to a T (well, a cube actually!).

To celebrate its 40th anniversary Parco, a Japanese department store, commissioned Ozaki to create a magical graphic wonderland. The high-tech display uses advanced technology to project 3D images onto 3 metre tall tree installations in the entrance court of Shibuya Parco Part 1. These giant cubes stacked into a Christmas tree shape with projections beamed on every surface create a wonderful visual feast.

For Food Creation, the company who created the food art for the event, not only is the appearance and taste of food crucial, so is the situation in which it’s eaten. What’s important is making the food come alive – delivering the concept to the stomach.

To express the conceptual catering, the Bread, Espresso & bakery invented three new cubed food products for the launch: chocolate bread with black pepper, tomato bread with squid ink and pink bread with curry. These creations were about ‘expecting the unexpected’ and for guests to be surprised and astounded by bread, a much maligned, taken for granted, daily staple of life.

The shoeless waiters dressed head to toe in black leotards with bow ties – their faces covered in masks – moved around the floor in slow, highly choreographed steps. As the lid was pulled off the serving tray, vapours evaporated around the cubed bread, which was delicately placed around lighted cubes. The waiters were as much motion, design and magic as Oazki’s visual creations.

Oazki’s most famous works involve projecting real-time visuals onto buildings, furniture and objects using the original quarter Cube visioning system. The technology involves the precise scanning of 3D objects and projecting these visuals onto 3D surfaces using optical illusions to give various effects. The artist has projected his work onto the Olympic stadium in Harajuku, temples in Kyoto and opening launches of international retail brand flagships. His use of projection technology truly amazes and stimulates.

To experience the Motion + Design + Magic exhibition yourself, visit Parco Factory, Shibuya Parco Part 1, 6F before 23 November 2009.

This is a new post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.

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This is the last picture report from the Tokyo Design Week 2009 by Kristina Dryza. Check the earlier ones here and here.

This is a new post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.

This is a new post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.

For an hour last week, just as dusk crept over the streets of Daikanyama, the Royal Danish Embassy hosted a small launch reception for its new building façade.

Curated and art directed by Per-Ole Lind the facade features Danish furniture designers of both the classic and new generation. Wanting to create a direct link between the customer and the producer, QR codes were integrated into the façade so people passing the busy thoroughfare can explore the featured designers further with their mobile phones.

For the reception, music came from a laptop placed in the Embassy’s front garden that was also showing loops of Lind creating the façade’s images. Admiring the scene from the footpath, guests drank champagne, ate wasabi peas, downloaded the QR codes to their phones and enjoyed the balmy autumnal weather. There was also a Louise Campbell lamp and Arne Jacobsen chair in the garden that made an appearance courtesy of the Ambassador Franz-Michael Skjold Mellbin’s private home and office.

Denmark is well known for its furniture design of the 50s and 60s and typecast by designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Hans J. Wegner; but this showcase attempts to introduce the Japanese to a fresh set of designers. A few ‘oldies but goodies’ are included, but the focus is on emerging Danish design talent. As the Ambassador said at the launch, “I’d like the Japanese to see the new generation of young Danish designers – not just the big giants – and how they’re holding onto tradition, but designing in a modern way.”

The eight designers featured are Thomas Petersen, Arne Jacobsen, Hans J. Wegner, Louise Campbell, Ole Jensen, Komplot, Gamfratesi and Cecilie Manz.

The Embassy plans to change its façade every three months to a topic of interest to the Japanese people. To see this Design Week influenced façade, visit the Embassy at 29-6 Sarugaku-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033 Japan.

This is a new post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.

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Bottega Veneta announced today a design competition organized in partnership with the world-renowned University of Tokyo. The competition, for students of the architecture department of the School of Engineering, will culminate in the presentation of three winning designs in April at Bottega Veneta’s 2010 Salone del Mobile presentation at their new headquarters in Milan.

Portrait of Tomas Maier together with Manabu Chiba, very famous Japanese architect and associate professor at Tokyo University.

The competition challenge, which was presented to students in early October, is to design a piece of furniture that serves a function for someone seated, taking into account Bottega Veneta’s traditions of quality, timeless design, and handcraftsmanship. Each student had the opportunity to present his or her initial sketches and ideas in person to Bottega Veneta Creative Director Tomas Maier, who flew to Tokyo specifically for the design review. Students are now in the process of refining their design proposals for formal submission, after which ten finalists will be selected. On December 18th, the three winners will be announced. For these young designers, winning is the beginning of an experience that will take them to Bottega Veneta’s atelier in Vicenza in January, where they will inspect the design prototypes being built for them, and then back to Milan in April to present their projects to the design world and global press attending Bottega Veneta’s 2010 Salone del Mobile presentation. Finally, the winning designs will be available for special order through the Bottega Veneta stores worldwide and on display in Ginza later in the year.

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The latest exhibition by artist Jårg Geismar, COME CLOSER - life inside the car, concentrates on the inside, not outside, of cars. Le Corbusier, Edward Kienholz and Andy Warhol all worked with the body of cars in exhibition spaces but as Geismar explains, “The focus of cars is usually on the exterior as it’s easier to grasp. Children play with cars. Everybody has a memory of the outside of a car - the form, colour etc. There are many examples of artists working with the outside of the car like Keith Haring, Ange Leccia, Wolf Vostell and Erwin Wurm to name some. But about the inside, there are not so many . . . ”

So Geismar’s work focuses on the inside - different scenes of people’s experiences and situations inside cars. Describing the exhibition on display at AUDI FORUM TOKYO from 7-13 September, the German artist born in Gotland, Sweden says, “It’s only on for one week. It’s incredibly dense. I’ve never prepared so much for such a short exhibition period.”

The performance, artworks, photographs, drawings and stories in the exhibition all have the same common theme - memorable and unique experiences or thoughts that occur while people are driving (or being inside) cars. For example, a mother talks with her teenage daughter about relationships and ‘girl talk’, two businessmen discuss a deal in the back seat with a chauffer, a car lover cleans the car from the inside, an opera singer sings out the window. “Cars can be so many things,” the artist explains. “Social meeting places, driving cinemas, problem solvers or status symbols.”

Asked what inspired the project Geismar responds, “It’s the fascination about human beings and machines. In the 80’s I started working with cars using projectors, and mainly with blank projections. After working in different spaces, I got interested in site-specific room installations. I was searching for other spaces - moving spaces for my installations. Then one day in the 80’s I read about ‘the car as a social sculpture’ by Le Corbusier and this led me to install the first projection car - ‘Breathing Cars’ - at the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf in 1985.” This work then inspired Geismar, a guest professor since 1997 at The Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Gent, Belgium to do similar works, like cutting apart car bodies and using them as little cinemas for projections.

This current exhibition is a continuation of the artist’s work - ‘Elegant Moving’ - a projection/film installation that was shown inside the AUDI R8 at the German Embassy in Tokyo in 2008. “But COME CLOSER isn’t only about projection,” he says. ”It’s about the experiences and memories people have inside the car. Many decisions, which affect many lives, have taken place inside cars. The audience has to ‘come closer’ to see what is happening.”

So what is Geismar’s favourite memory inside a car? “The car to me is a driving cinema. I’ve been enjoying this since I was a child. It gives you another view about your surroundings and perspectives of life. Also, when I was a child in Sweden we lived on an island. We’d leave the car to be on the ferry during the trip and when we arrived, we went back inside the car and continued our journey. This experience of going in and out of the car, and in the boat, is my other favourite memory.”

And what does this world-renowned artist see as the future of cars? “More multifunction - flying and swimming - as well as greater environmental friendliness. And in ecological terms, there’ll be surprises in shape and form.”

So next time you’re stuck in traffic, remember to pay attention to what’s going on inside, as well as outside, the car. Come closer.

This is a new post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.

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the Way Sensing GO + consists of two parts, a workshop and an installation from the outcome. The concept of this piece is building a digital version of The Way Things Go (Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987) assembling a chain of electric modules which has both input and output.

The first version the Way Sensing Go was made in 2008.

This time, the piece, entitled the Way Sensing Go + , will incorporate not only devices and sensors but also animations and films into the chain. For example, if a light bulb lightened up a monitor, flowers would bloom in movie.

4nchor5 la6 will hold a workshop open for public at Clear Gallery in Tokyo for making the modules, which are exhibiting for Kids Programme at NTT Intercommunication Centre from 11th July. The dates for the workshops are set to 27th sat July 13:00-21:00 and 28th sun July 13:00-21:00.