Background Research: light bulb

Another reference comes from the world of outdoor advertising. It is commercial, and one of the best examples of effective outdoor advertising I've ever seen before. The client is a magazine company named Economist London, and the title of this project is "light bulb" created by abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, world wide advertising agency network. This billboard show a light bulb that illuminates whenever someone walks under it by hooking some electric motion sensors (probably IR sensor) under the sign. The concept of the Economist billboard is that you get an Economist, you get a brilliant idea. There are two big reasons why I select this project as a good reference for my project.

The first reason is that this installation can have a meaning only when people participate in it. Before someone walks under it, the Economist billboard doesn't work and it is just an outdoor advertisement without any distinguishing mark. Only when someone is under there, eventually it can be a real advertisement with a sharp difference.

The second reason deals with the audience. Who is this billboard for? It is not an installation for a person who is under there. In fact, a pedestrian who walk underneath doesn't know what is happening. It is because this ad is for people who are on the other side of installation.

Therefore, we can be divided into two classes: those who enjoy and control the installation directly, and a those who watch the installation from a distance.

Background Research: Kirlian phenomenon

In Asia, when people meet a person who looks a bit different or special they say, “you have an aura.” People say such an exclamation when people feel a tiny energy, which is invisible. The Kirlian photography is a high voltage, contact print technology that makes an aura visible and readable. It is named after Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, a Russian photographer, who in 1939 accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is subjected to a strong electric field, an image is created on the plate.

One famous Kirlian phenomenon, the “phantom leaf,” cannot be explained by know physical laws-but it may be a fake. The experimnt is easy to perform; you take a Kirlian photograph of a leaf after cutting off a small portion. Phantom leaf photos from Soviet-era proponents showed the removed portion of the leaf appearing as a ghostly appartion, suggestig an ethereal “bio-plasma body” persisting where the physical leaf no longer existed.

I guess it is in terms of temperatures and humidity surrounding objects, but I am very interested in this magical phenomenon and I partly understand how auras work. This means auras remember thing’s existence even after they are disappeared. In order words, auras can help to communicate with other things even though they are not there. Now, I know there is no person who leaves no traces behind, and in this reason, I know something is always in the air. A trace is another name of aura.

Personal statement-2 The air between people

I believe that the aura between people have a power to change people’s relationship.
Why man and women fall in love? Why people don’t want to live alone? Why people want to discuss every time they meet a problem? I know there are so many reasons, but I trust that one of biggest answer is an aura between people. An aura creates a mood for love, makes people not to lonely, help people trust each other. There are so many kinds of auras in this world because different personalities or appearances create different auras. This mysterious power have been changing world even in this moment and causes so many events and accidents. It an aura exist, then is it only between people? We can imagine that objects, such as a car, also have auras. It is largely because every object has its own function and character that is created by user.

The nature looks also has it’s own aura. If you look very carefully, nature’s colors or movements are overflowing in the world. And the relationship with people is very personal. This idea came from my past experience. When I was young child, my brother and I used to go up to the loop and enjoy sunset with flying bird go back their nest. Interesting thing is that every time I see a sunset, my brother and I’ve got a different feeling. It was a created aura between a nest and I, and I still remember it.

I just noticed an existence of auras and begin to imagine what an aura is, where it came from, and how it works in our life. I also wonder an aura’s color, shape, strength, movement, and expression and I hope to redefine the meaning of auras in my own way.

Takagi Masakatsu : Multimedia artist / W+K Tokyo TEN

Takagi Masakatsu is a multimedia artist and musician.
He lives in Kyoto, Japan and most of his inspiration comes from living there (Kyoto).
He notices the breeze and he imagines there is color on the wind.
When I see this work, I was very suprised.
I've never seen such quality as the moving painting before.
It looks try to give a message to me.
And I believe that the message is color or wind.

He says "If you look very carefully, these colors or movements are overflowing in the world."
And I think he know how communicate with nature.

Personal Statement-1 : Seeing is Saying

I think people do not communicate only by mouth. Oral dictation is just one of ways to explain opinions. People can use other parts of body, like a sign language, to communicate something. I believe the eyes, especially, is one of the most important parts of the body language. It is because the eye is the core of facial expression and it always shows meaning. For me, the eyes are like the mouth without the sound. But if you look very carefully, eyes are a super blabber, a serious gossiper, very noisy and never tell a lie.

If the eyes are another mouth, then which parts of the body that people use to listen something? Of course we have a good device named ears, but I believe that the eyes also good stuff to listen of what people really want to say. It is largely because when people listen something carefully, they usually make some kind of eye contact to each other. Moreover people who live in the era of the internet receive a lot of information through the eyes.

In a nutshell, I strongly believe that an eye is the biggest window to see something, to say something, to listen something and to feel something. I want to study the way the eyes work in terms how it can say and listen to people and I hope to redefine the meaning of eyes in my own way.

Personal Statement-3 : Making people gather together

I am very interested in making people gather together and keeping stay together as much as possible. This idea came partly from my previous job background. During last six years I've worked for an advertising agency and I've managed so many ad campaigns. Every time I create an advertisement, I thought that “who really want to see this advertising”, “who want to spend their time for reading this print commercial very carefully”. Of course some people need to listen very carefully. But I believe that almost all people had to see advertising because it was there. As you know, like you could see a great many commercials at Time Square in NYC. Who indeed want to spend their time to give their attention to a whole advertisement?

The biggest reason is that a lot of advertisement just focused on what clients wanted to say and didn’t try to solve the basic problems of advertisement. In this reason, a lot of advertising agencies just increase a quantity of commercial advertising, not only TV-commercial but also newspaper print, poster, and not to mention bus shelter ad, in order to be seen an audience as much as possible. And as time goes by, they became a visual pollution more day by day. This represents how selfish an advertisement is.

Every thing needs the reason of being, but in my opinion, a lot of things surround us, include commercials, had been showing over the transom. I want to make people move by them selves. I want to make people see something, feel something, and enjoy something involuntarily. I want to make people pay attention more than two seconds without any pushing. This is the basic reason why I am very interested in gathering people together. It is because there is no gathering without concern.

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