More interesting paper art here. This time from Chris Natrop. I especially like the use of shadows as a definite part of the composition.

[Link]

Artist: Salyu
Song: Arabesque
From album: “Kokyu” (Her songs from the All About Lily Chou Chou soundtrack)
Genre: Dreamy Comfortonica
[buy this album] [Salyu Site (jp)]

When I listen to this song I think of slowly falling while in a dream. I’m sailing through clouds without a sound or feeling but this song, and its voice. Together we slide, effortless glide, through soft warm spaces of sky. Everywhere it’s sunset and the clouds go on forever. I can see though my eyes are closed, and between layers of clouds are cloud-vistas and shifting cloud-landscapes in orange and lemon and white, brightness all around. We are safe and sound in the endless air; for there are no sharp edges anywhere in the world.

Salyu plays the titular Lily Chou Chou in the movie below, and sings all her songs. Lily is the singer/idol that the characters connect through, retreat to, love, and obsess about. She apparently sings this song in an Okinawan dialect. Approximate translation in comments.

All About Lily Chou Chou is a beautiful film about pain, isolation, inspiration, and living. It’s about not getting along with the harshness of reality, and escaping into music and obsession. The characters struggle to understand the world around them, and people, and themselves. They try to connect, but are crushed by circumstances and repeatedly hurt by one another. Their stories are told in snapshot slices of life, panoramas of experience themselves stark and isolated.

The music, ranging from the solo piano of Debussy’s Arabesque, to Salyu’s ethereal song of the same name, paints vivid swathes of emotion from start to finish. It makes the brilliant greens greener and the country sky wider and bluer. It speaks for the characters when they aren’t able to. It’s music as a friend and confidante when no one else will be: It comforts and reassures, it inspires reckless abandon one moment, and appreciation of simple existence the next. In this movie, the music is as much a character as anyone else.

I apologize for being pretty bad at movie reviews, but what I will say, is that this is well worth seeing for anyone who can enjoy a challenging film with real human emotion and lush, expressive atmosphere.

[Site][2][Buy on Amazon]

“…Theo Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.”

The moving art of Theo Jansen is simply spectacular. The basic and mundane materials that he uses to create are metamorphosed into giant living beings that seem to have minds of their own. They crawl, walk, undulate, roll, flap, and fly. These creations are made even more impressive when one realizes that they are powered and manipulated by wind alone. No engines, wires, electricity, or microchips; only the magic of physics and brilliant design. To me, this is completely delightful. You’ll have to see the video clips to fully appreciate the way the amazing complexity of these works can give birth to such simple beauty.

[Link][2][3]

More interesting art, incidentally from Japan. Here we have some crazy metallic fluid which looks positively villainous when exposed to magnetic fields. I want to say something like, “Putting the goth back in metal,” but that doesn’t really make any sense. Make sure to check out the videos. They are more than half of the fun.

[Link]

Here is some lovely art in what one would normally find a very unlikely medium: the manhole cover.

[Link][2]

Happy New Year Anybody! Here’s an interesting article on PingMag about a modern twist on a very Japanese classic. Thomas Heatherwick, a lauded young UK designer, was asked to come up with a design for a buddhist temple to be built in Kagoshima, Japan: [Gmap]. They took him to Kyoto to see the temples that everyone thinks of when they think, “Oh, Japan is all about some temples.”; and (like in a Zen koan read with a British accent) he was enlightened… and decided to make something completely different. His design is earthy and flowing and not unlookinglike a splash of rock carved from sedimentary wood. To me it looks begging-to-be-climbed.

[Link]

Artist: UA
Song: Niji
From album: Breathe
Genre: Ethereal Daydreamcore.
[buy this album] [UA site (Japanese)]

UA is a Japanese girl with a Swahili name. If you look it up, (click “u” under Swahili->English) you’ll find that it means a LOT of things, but it’s most touted for its double meanings of “kill” and “flower”. She’s definitely not your typical Japanese female vocalist; and though I’m nearly loathe to do so, it’s very difficult not to draw comparisons to the eccentric Björk, who has become a referential catch-all in times of classificational crises. In this album, more so than in her others, she explores interminglings and frolics of sound, and from it, this song is probably my favorite.

I imagine this song in a of couple ways: One is a leisurely midnight ride through a newly-made city of modern-esque design. It’s all glass and chrome and amber light, high angles and sweeping curves; and there’s not a soul in sight. There’s just her voice gliding along on an expensive suspension, and the designs the light makes in reflections and refractions on everything. Sometimes they come across as little whimsical sounds flowing around and through the main melody of the light.

The other was the first and strongest that impressed itself on me. Imagine if you will, Christopher Doyle as cinematographer for this dreamy scene. The amber light is here too, and he makes it alive. It glows with its own power and feeling. It contrasts the dark room and enriches the heat of a sultry evening in this, some tropical corner of the world. It reflects from the dull corners and intricacies of the time-worn furniture and walls. The veranda doors are open over the city, and a breeze with the lingering smell of sunset enters like a peaceful sigh. With it, the sound of dusk and people living their lives wafts in to mix with the song being played somewhere on an antique phonograph. Wong Kar Wai directs as a lone girl dances dreamily around the room. She is basically just turning in circles, her hands up, and down; but he completely captures the liquescent feeling of her moment. Slow, luxurious motion and lush atmosphere has made for her a sensuous draught. She is completely detached from the world and yet so intensely connected to life. A high-angle shot and she is looking up, her eyes are closed. As she spins, she can feel life flowing and breathing; so dense, so good, and bad, and neither. So unbearably beautiful. In the embrace of all this miraculous life she almost seems to be floating. The sounds wrap around and about her, the instruments hovering above the floor or dancing around her ankles.

Translated Lyrics in comments.