Cultural Talks and Yatters. Personal Opinions.

Cultural Talks and Yatters. Personal Opinions.
JAGDA TOKYO 28th Exhibition - Takis Proietti Rocchi x Masatsugu Yano
“Cultural Talks and Yatters. Personal Opinions”
From 2009/11/17 to 2009/11/21
This exhibition finds its roots in the cultural exchange that may occur when two artists
coming from two opposite sides of the world eventually meet.
Such exchange would never be as cultural if the typographical exchange was not be included:
for this reason, ideograms will replace letters and numbers and vice versa
while two designers would switch their role.
For this project, Yano would create an artwork where letters would meet bodies,
in a hallucinating vision of what’s western for a Japanese guy.
Proietti Rocchi instead, starting from a linguistic trick with ideograms,
would start a journey through Japan’s society and the role of the young Japanese,
aiming to defend juvenile trends against the manipulation of public opinion.
With the help of the designer Kishira Akanuma, his creation will be given birth.
Designers:
Takis PROIETTI ROCCHI (Character design di Kishira AKANUMA)
Masatsugu YANO
Work specifications:
Banner (the left side designed by Yano, the right one created by Proietti Rocchi)
Size: 15.6x1m
Material used: Tarpaulin
Printing Process: Ink-jet 8 colors
Photos
5 photos of Mitsume Temo (4 printed and 1 available with a QR-code download)
Costume
A handmade costume of Mitsume Temo (cotton and synthetic fabrics).
(see above picture)
Bag
Extra
The bags were made out of 30 Tarpaulin clips (0.5x1m) obtained from the banner.
Cord and metallic rings were used for the handles
(available in 4 colors: cyan, magenta, yellow and black).
photographic “making-of”.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - Takis Proietti Rocchi
Introduction: the Japan scene
Have you ever heard about Japanese people working hard? That is true.
Japanese society is established on a system that needs people to keep up with super human working hours
despite requiring by law, 8 hours-a-day shifts like most countries.
To make the country roll and people survive to Japanese cost of living,
the whole population works from 2 to 4 hours overtime, including weekends if needed.
Japanese set of laws on labor also has several applications when overtime takes place.
In western countries, such working conditions would never be accepted by people.
In Japan instead, people are subdued by a certain cultural censorship that maintains the social order.
This form of censorship is efficiently deployed by the media to rule over the youth,
suffocating all young cultural trends that are Japanese youngsters’ expression of alienation and disappointment.
This way, once youth’s dreams and ambitions are finally voided, the workaholic society of Japan
will have available a bigger army of mechanical unstoppable workers, at this point, even easier to control.
Wherever in the West, Japanese culture is admired and well considered.
The peculiar features that make this country so successful abroad are not so worshipped in their mother country.
Japan’s most exported artistic products, the anime (manga), are considered at home
as pervert pieces of design and the public opinion keeps on labeling them as pornographic
and pointing out at cosplayers as prostitutes in need when they like
just to make over and have fun after another lousy and tiring day at work.
All this manipulation is based on a distorted vision of Japanese young society and is extremely unfair.
Unfortunately, this opinion is commonly spread among the eldest
who are more exposed to the media and for that, easier to overcome.
Concept artwork
All design is produced for people. A piece of art that conveys no message is not worth being produced.
From this point onwards, I aim to defend juvenile trends against all forms of cultural censorship.
We all know the Earth is round. We will not buy anybody saying it is flat.
Misinformation can no longer be an acceptable mean to control social order.
Christopher Columbus is an obvious reference in this context, having lived and traveled during an era
in which the Vatican held hid from universal knowledge all scientific truth, as it would oppose to the word of God.
Undoubtedly, all this rule of action was to protect the conflict of political and economical interests, even at that time.
Power was used as a misleading mean to control the masses and incorrect information was exploited to support it.
Unfortunately this still happens in Japan (but not only there…).
Times change but some practices have not been yet abandoned.
When a strong message is to be spread, a heroin is all we may need.
Akanuma, the designer, and I eventually came up with the answer to all our communication quests
and the answer was, Mitsume Temo.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - Takis Proietti Rocchi
Mitsume Temo - 蜜芽テモ
Mitsume Temo is graphically represented in three different versions.
Shonen-shojo (the style of teenage girls’ favourite mangas), chibi (or deformed) and cosplay.
In Japanese, the character’s surname is composed by two ideograms, where mitsu stands for “honey”
and me means “blossoming bud”.
Basically, a sweet teenager at her utmost freshness.
If the ideograms of the name, insead, are switched (which is possible in Japanese), in order to become mote,
the meaning we get from them is “being attractive”.
In addition to this, if the stress is replaced and the name is read all together,
Mitsumetemo will be understood as “watch me, stare” and be linked to the erotic practice of voyeurism.
The question is: if it is nice to see and appealing, why it has to be considered naughty or pervert just to stare at it?
Additional symbolism can be found in the arrow placed in the logo:
following the direction of the name, it points out at Temo herself, like an invitation.
There is also a reference to the first appearance of Mitsume Temo during the Jagda Tokyo exhibition
which was made in cooperation with Masatsugu Yano, a fellow designer from Nagoya.
Yano, in Japanese, is written with the ideogram of “arrow”,
so the logo was also a way to connect with Yano and acknowledge him for the support given during the exhibition.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - Takis Proietti Rocchi
The Round Earth Committee ○ぃちきゅう委員会
Besides being a student, Mitsume Temo is the Founder of the Round Earth Committee.
The Committee is our (Akanuma’s and mine) second choice for the message delivery.
A linguistic fact makes the trick: “the earth is round” is written “marui chikyu” and its syllables
can be re-displayed like: MA RU I CHI KYU. As Japanese’s numbers can also be written by letters,
if the same phrase is displayed like “maru ichi kyu” it ends up meaning “019”.
Shuffle these numbers until you get “109” and you will be set in the biggest shopping centre for teenage girls
and young ladies you can find in Japan, located in Shibuya, in downtown Tokyo.
You may have read or heard about it for its extravagant fashion as this is the place where the “knee socks”
and the “yamamba” trends were born. Both these trends were created to modify Japanese female school uniforms
and make them more personalized and nonetheless, sexier.
The public opinion was worried by young Japanese ladies’ wish to appear like some cartoon heroin
and that is because manga, Japan’s favorite art among young people,
the place where dreams and reality finally meet, are considered a pornographic genre,
entertainment for kids that has though, a strong sexual feeling and for this, is mainly deviant.
Poor Japanese youngsters… every movement they create that looks a little too alternative
will be accused to include some borderline conduct which will eventually reveal a compromised sexuality.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - Kishira Akanuma
Below you will find a comment from designer Akanuma Kishira who collaborated with Proietti Rocchi
in the realization of the Temo’s illustrations and who has dramatically contributed to the project’s great outcome.
From Akanuma’s online blog (in Japanese):
“Let’s stand up for the youth and its culture – this is the meaning of the exhibit.
In Japan, the working hour system is particularly strange.
Normal is working 10 hours a day while pursuing a dream career is just like a utopia.
Unfortunately, most of Japanese people stick to this system.
I have myself already been mocked from my family and friends for trying to succeed in what I loved the most.
It is true that we need to work but a job is just a job and why should not we dream on…
I wish people could remember what their heart desire, especially youngest people.
I wish people could finally have a job they love and that matches their aspirations.
I cannot help thinking about Don Quijote and his battle against reality. I am a supporter of him, since forever.
I think I have been lucky having the chance to help Takis in his project;
protecting our own wishes is so praiseworthy!!
I remember being at the supermarket, some time ago, where a kid was at the cash desk with his grandpa
and claimed he wanted to become a superhero so bad!
His grandfather shouted at him, saying it was not possible as superheroes only exist in cartoons.
I felt so disappointed… how can you destroy a kid’s dream like that?
Had the old man maybe thought that cartoons lead to a life of depravation?
But in the end, is not the mankind still carrying on thanks to their dreams and aspirations?”
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - Masatsugu Yano
I live and work in Nagoya and I had always wanted to exhibit in Tokyo.
I spoke to the Jagda Tokyo Gallery, hungering for exhibit there but, for it is such an important gallery,
booking some space was quite impossible.
I had almost given up when, just 2 days before ending my work for the 2009 Nagoya Design Week
(on which I spent about a year working), I received a call by the Jagda guys.
They said they found me a partner to exhibit with, that he was Italian
and that we just had one month to set everything up!
The responsible for the Jagda Gallery was very concerned about the little time we had
but I accepted, with no further thinking. A minute after I got another call and Takis was on the line, this time.
He soon told me: “I will be in Nagoya tomorrow to discuss everything”… and guess who was worried this time…
Since our first meeting in Nagoya, we immediately defined what kind of exhibition we were going to organize:
an exhibition focused on the cultural exchange between the Western and the Eastern worlds,
in this particular case, Italy and Japan.
I have never been in Italy but I have some stereotypical ideas about it,
such as that Italians are very clever, work as less as possible and are always around women.
My biggest Italian passion is for Ducati, the motorcycles company.
From the following meetings I had with Takis, many of the things he told me were worth being retained and quoted:
“We should not be overcome by the fact that the gallery wants two designers to be facing one another,
like a challenge. If a challenge really exists, it will be between us as a team and the Jagda,
whose responsible persons will set their critic eye on us”;
“We should primarily focus on having fun during the exhibit, otherwise what is the point of it?”;
“I am not concerned about the supreme quality of the final result;
what I care the most is that we have a clear and strong message to deliver”;
“We should also care about our public’s fun as well, not just ours! I want to see smiley faces at the presentation!”
Eventually, we decided to create a 16 metres banner for the two of us, as a shared workbench.
After this all, I ended up being quite unsure about my own opinion on Italians.
What I got to know for sure is that Takis is a master in communication.
I then decided to abandon my false prejudices and focused on visually representing my vision of Italy
(and of course my love for Ducati could not be left apart).
Finally, the day of the exhibit arrived and I cannot deny that the Mitsume Temo project
had a deeper impact on public than my work.
However, we had decided that the exhibition would not be a challenge
between Takis and me and who was going to be more successful.
Leaving Nagoya to expose my work in Tokyo but especially boning up on this cultural exchange
were the most important factors for me and I have to admit that without Takis,
this would have not taken place.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - La mostra
Pictures, courtesy of Yasuo Saji, photographer for the Jagda Gallery.
Banner.
Yano’s side.
Proietti Rocchi’s side.
Bag kit.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - La mostra
Pictures, courtesy of Yasuo Saji, photographer for the Jagda Gallery.
From left to right: Masatsugu Yano, Mitsume Temo, Takis Proietti Rocchi, Kishira Akanuma
Mitsume Temo taking polaroids with guests.
The buffet was in Temo style.
Mitsume Temo while cutting the banner in order to make the bags which have been distributed to the guests.
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Cultural TYPO - Bag and Credits
Bag
The bags were made out of 30 Tarpaulin clips (0.5x1m) obtained from the banner.
Credits
Cultural Talks and Yatters. Personal Opinions.
Takis Proietti Rocchi (art director)
Masatsugu Yano (art director)
Special Thanks:
Kishira Akanuma
Foto:
Yasuo Saji (photographer of JAGDA)
Mostra realizzata da:
JAGDA - Japae Graphic Designers Association
Links
http://www.takislab.com
http://www.openends.org/
http://rainbowcomic.com/
http://mitsumetemo.takislab.com/
http://www.jagda.org/
http://www.jagda.org/information/event/417
Takis Proietti Rocchi - www.takislab.com
Takis Proietti Rocchi homepage
Masatsugu Yano homepage
Kishira Akanuma homepage
Mitsume Temo homepage
JAGDA homepage
Cultural TYPO homepage