Creepy Kewpies

When i was visiting the toy shops in Tokyo, i saw one toy in all the shops! It wasn't hello kitty or Ben Ten or Miffy or any of thos, but little naked babies being sold in packets. These are called Kewpies! They were extremely popular and loved. I asked why it didn't have any clothes on, and the shop keeper told me in broken english, that people bought the dolls and stitched clothes for them. These came in various shapes and poses. The looked to me like the toys sold here by the local vendors for about 5 bucks each, but there a pack of 12 small kewpies cost me 1400 yen!(which was a little more than 700 indian rupees).I saw a large life size one too which was tattooed and had piercings on it!It was crazy ridiculous, and could not be left behind!I thought these could be used for my project at some point of time.

Kewpie dolls (occasionally spelled cupie) and figurines are based on comical strip-like illustrations by Rose O'Neill that appeared in Ladies' Home Journal in 1909. The small dolls were extremely popular in the early 1900s. They were first produced in Ohrdruf, a small town in Germany, then famous for its toy-manufacturers. They were made out of bisque and then celluloid. In 1949, Effanbee created the first hard plastic versions. Their name, often shortened to "Kewpies", is derived from "cupid". The early dolls, especially signed or bisque, are highly collectible and worth thousands of dollars. The term "Kewpie doll" is sometimes mistakenly applied to the troll doll.

Hans Bellmer

I was recently introduced to Hans Bellmer, who's doll projects are fascinating. He was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany. Bellmer's doll project is also said to have been catalysed by a series of events in his personal life. In his works, Bellmer explicitly sexualized the doll as a young girl.

Creepy children's chants

children's games often creep adults out. Some adults think children should be shielded from the blood and gore.

But most kids quite like the blood and gore
Just think of the Original versions of the popular Fairy stories:
The Ugly sisters cut off their toes and heels to try and make the glass slipper fit.

And the evil queen in Snow White, met a quite gruesome end at the hands of the dwarfs., with shoes made of red hot iron.

Children often play gruesome games with chants - when they think adults are out of earshot. Here is one chant:

"Cats got the measles,
Dogs got the Flu
We've got Chickenpox,
Now so have you."


Many of the old childrens rhymes and fairy stories are Very graphic and gruesome. In recent years political correctness and adults who think children should be wrapped in cotton wool until they are 21 year old - have removed all the blood and gore .
But that's the bits children liked - every one likes a good scare when the bad guy gets it in the end in suitably graphic detail.
-steven m

everyone know this one, but its still very strange:

Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Inside a school for suicide bombers

Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy takes on a terrifying question: How does the Taliban convince children to become suicide bombers? Propaganda footage from a training camp is intercut with her interviews of young camp graduates. A shocking vision.

Steven Pinker on the myth of violence

Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence.

Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer

Psychopathic killers are the basis for some must-watch TV, but what really makes them tick? Neuroscientist Jim Fallon talks about brain scans and genetic analysis that may uncover the rotten wiring in the nature (and nurture) of murderers. In a too-strange-for-fiction twist, he shares a fascinating family history that makes his work chillingly personal.

Sensing Nature,Mori art museum

I visited the Sensing Nature exhibition at Mori art museum in Roppongi hills.
'sensing nature', an exhibition which rethinks the japanese perception of nature,
with interpretations of the subject made by takashi kuribayashi, taro shinoda and tokujin yoshioka. the three japanese artists / designers give abstract or symbolic expression to immaterial or amorphous concepts as well as natural phenomenon such as snow, water, wind, light, stars, mountains, waterfalls and forests. Their ideas of nature suggest that it is not something that is to be contrasted with the human world, but that it is something that incorporates all life-forms, including human beings. the exhibition consisted of newly commissioned works by each of the three artists, each attempting to stimulate our sense of nature through large-scale installations.

Tokujin Yoshioka
Tokujin yoshioka's project 'snow' is a dynamic 15-meter-wide installation. It consists of a scene depicting hundreds of kilograms of light feathers blowing all over and falling down slowly which lets the visitors experience the feeling of looking at or walking through a snowstorm.









































































other works on show by tokujin yoshioka hist pieces 'the light' and 'waterblock':
This was quite amazing!The waterblock is so clear that when it is placed in water it disappears. When it rains on this block, it is nearly impossible to differentiate between the rain and the crystal. Also, even tho its so long, one can see clearly from one end to the other without any distortion.





http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/10982/tokujin-yoshioka-for-sensing-nature-exhibition.html

Shinoda Taro


























































Kuribayashi Takashi

Open Space 2010

I visited a gallery at the NTT Intercommunication center(ICC)at the beautiful Tokyo opera city tower. The exhibit was called Open Space 2010. Open Space includes a gallery, a library, a mini-theater, and a lounge.
Here's some of the work i really enjoyed:

"Juggler"
Gregory BARSAMIAN
Strobe lights render three-dimensional animation in the dark. Figures toss telephones into the air. These phones transform from nursing bottles to dice before they return to the figures' hand. The work employs the theory of photogene to express anticipations and dissensions within the relationship between humankind and machines.
























"Morel's Panorama"
FUJIHATA Masaki
A panorama camera is installed in the center of the room. This camera is able to capture its entire surrounding by shooting images reflected by the hemispherical mirror. The shot images are transformed into cylindrical shapes using computer software and projected onto the walls in real time. Furthermore, in another cylinder that appears on and off, pre-recorded footage of the artist himself is also mapped in the same way. The camera lens is pointed towards the photographic subject as a surrogate for our line of vision, but in the case of a panorama lens that can shoot a range of 360 degrees, there is no such thin as being "behind the camera." That is to say, people are made to be the photographic objects at the same time as they are the viewers and are transformed into the viewed. In this regard the panorama camera can be said to have properties that are very close to those of mirrors, but unlike with mirrors, the line of sight is not directly in front of the lens. Furthermore, because computer image processing technology is used in this work to reproduce the images, the viewer can see from the outside panoramas in which their own image has been captured and a structure created in which the relationship between the subject and the object is superimposed in multiple layers.

















"Marshmallow Scope"
IWAI Toshio
If you look into the monitor mounted in the white marshmallow-shaped object, you will see the surrounding landscape changing as if time is going forward and backward or the passengers or objects distorted. What you see is a result of the real time manipulation and deformation of video imagery and the flow of time that was shot with a video camera and stored in the computer. "Marshmallow Scope," with its lovely and friendly shape, can serve as a window through which you can look into another world that has a different time-flow from that in the real world we know.

























"The Tenth Sentiment"
KUWAKUBO Ryota
On the front of the model train running around the darkened room is a small, lit-up LED light. This train slowly navigates the room, which contains various large and small "objects," according to the model rail route, throwing the shadows of the "objects" onto the walls and ceiling as it goes. Due to the movement of the light source, the shadows of the stationary "objects" move as images like views from the carriage windows, surrounding viewers with images as if they were passengers riding on the train.

















"A Parallel Image"
Gebhard SENGMÜLLER & Franz BÜCHINGER
Some 2,500 photoconductors whose electric resistance changes depending on the brightness of light detected, have been attached to one of the two panels suspended from the ceiling. The same number of light bulbs has been attached to the other panel, and the two panels are connected with copper wire so that the position of each photoconductor on one panel corresponds with that of a light bulb on the other panel. When the brightness of light hitting photoconductors changes, this is reflected by the brightness of the corresponding light bulbs on the opposite panel, and the images captured by the "camera" panel with the photoconductors is conveyed as is to the "monitor" light bulbs on the opposite panel.






http://www.ntticc.or.jp/Exhibition/2010/Openspace2010/index.html

Exhibit, tokyo

I went to another art gallery, the paintings were brightly coloured and detailed. The subject was what looked like scenes from little red riding hood. Beautiful artwork and the gallery was lovely too. There were tiny sculptures made from clay. The artists work process was projected on the floor and on a tiny screen. The pens used to create a particular drawing were all stuck together and sold with the drawing, dvd and a book by the artist. The artist also held workshops and sculptures were made using all the material used during the workshop.

Mao Nakada, Tokyo

I visited the Mao Nakada Exhibition at Galleria Grafica Tokyo in Ginza. It displayed handprinted wooden panels that depicted wierd but adorable subjects like girls and foxes using multicoloured printing techniques. These were lovely and very intricately done. There were also miniature figurines made of different material like wool,fabric,paper mache.