design tide day one

last night was the press preview and then opening party for design tide. i was interviewed and photographed for mono magazine in the afternoon which was great. i will write a longer post on our booth and the nooka people, but i thought i'd give a taste of some of the other exhibitors first [and also, my installation is sooooo sad in comparison to the design studios from europe whose booths are financed by their respective embassies!]. i need to get on finding a sponsor to do an NYC pavilion type installation next year and bring some local NYC talent along with nooka...any ideas? or maybe i should bring tide to NYC? both ideas excite me...

from top: me with a nooka logo mustache.
entrance area with installation by Pearson Lloyd of London.
LED Abacus...a lot of fun!
installation by bleed of norway [who sell nooka in their concept shop] to showcase lamps by norway says.
instant libraries by BACH tokyo.

Doctor Tanaka

i began an email exchange with artist, shin tanaka after the success of the nooka+garbege collaboration [thank you garbege for the introduction] which resulted in the tanaka+nooka boxboy collaboration. up until recently, shin lived in kyushu and we never managed to meet face-to-face until this weekend. of course, our mixi pages are linked, so we keep up-to-date on each other. he has a top secret job as a scientist at a research center near mt. fuji [i promised not to reveal his day job to anyone, and it awes me that someone can do so many things as well as he does]. i was honored he took time to come to tokyo to meet and hang out. check out his great web site.

(how do you like my new cap? it was ¥100 at the yoyogi flea market)

devilrobots 10th anniversary party

it was great that the devil robots 10th anniversary party happened while i was in tokyo as it was a great way to catch up with old friends - especially people from osaka i haven't seen in many years who came up for the opening. it was about 8 years ago when i first met the devilrobots team in new york when i assisted them in the installation of their very first gallery exhibition for the tofu-oyako at zakka on grand street. it's been wonderful to see their characters grow into an international phenomenom and become friends along the way. the opening party was held at the parco gallery in shibuya.

you can learn more about team devilrobots here though the site is japanese

top: with mori chack.
bottom: mister kitai, creator of the tofu oyako series [left], special guest gachapin [middle], and tofu oyako no hitori [right].

i also got to meet mister tei of furifuri company who recognized me from my mixi page [mixi is the japanese equivilent of facebook], and mister mori chack, creator of gloomy bear, who's work i love and also knew only through mixi until the party. mixi is a one way i keep up my japanese writing skills.

design tide tokyo

here i am again in tokyo japan for the now anual design tide exhibition. this time though, i have a proper office in sendagaya to do work while away from nyc. design tide happens concurrent to 100% design and is a great time to be in tokyo -- designers and architects from all over the world are here with exhibitions, presentations and shows! check out www.designtide.jp for more information. also, check out the webpage for my new tokyo office: www.nooka.jp