March
07
Tags
Electro-Shock Face Art
I saw this video by Daito Manabe at the Tokyo Art Fair today: thirty-six electrode-wired faces twitched in time to a modernistic percussion soundtrack. It was a symphony of facial tics, orchestrated in such a way that each face was “played” like an instrument, with whole sections grimacing and blinking in counterpoint. I kind of hate to admit it, but it was totally mesmerizing. I don’t think any faces were actually harmed in the making of this video, because at the end, they all sort of cracked up with the same kind of weird relief you have after stumbling off an especially hair-raising roller coaster ride.
Being friends with artist Daito Manabe might be a bit hair-rasing – here is a video he made, testing the technique on his friends (electric stimulus to face – test4) before he made the piece I saw at Tokyo Art Fair. If you’re in Tokyo in March and want to go, info is on their website.
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Read a novel set in Tokyo
In the wake of a deadly earthquake, fans erupt in a frenzy of mourning when it’s discovered that their favorite pop star is among the dead. But when Detective Kenji Nakamura is sent to investigate a death at a local shrine, he finds evidence that suggests the impossible: How could the head priest have been murdered by…read more
