runurunu

runurunu s/s and a/w 2012, alien technology for navigating future cities and holographic subspaces.

Cybernetic Organism

"The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."

A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. -Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto

Mariko Mori, "Subway" 1994 

Givenchy fw 1999

Ghost in the Shell (1995) Directed by Mamoru Oshii, based on work by Masamune Shirow

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.

Undercover "SCAB" (s/s 2003)

Heavily deconstructed, patched up DIY. Undercover's Paris debut was largely made up of pieces that look like you could make them at home but the attention to detail is Jun's saving grace, what appeals to me most about this collection is the departure from crust punk to a different sort of urban tribe with its own implied idiosyncrasies and semiotics: the enigmatic logos and symbols, the combination of industrial and dark with very bright, colorful "folk" embroidering and patterns.

City Lines

City imagery line drawings I've done for possible print motifs, some drawn from photos (Araki's Tokyo photography) and others made up. 0.4mm Pilot G-Tec C4 pen in a small notebook.

Shanghai

It's hard to believe this is a real place.

Blade Runner's LA 2019

Syd Mead, described as a "visual futurist" is the artist responsible for the look of Blade Runner's urban landscape. The look and feel of the film, after its release in 1982, was arguably the first accepted mainstream establishment of a cyberpunk aesthetic. More of Mead's work:

Daft Punk also apparently inspired by Mead's illustration.

Yayoi Kusama @ TATE

Went to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the TATE Modern last week, really enjoyed seeing her variety and scale of work and its development over her decades of producing art. While not necessarily relevant to my Unit 7 project thematically, I was really impressed by the hypnotic, psychedelic effect of Kusama's repetition of smaller elements, especially in the "Infinity Mirrored Room" space where hanging neon lights seemed to span infinitely in every direction. The endless amount of repetition and aggregation of smaller components (and precise mark making in the Infinity Net series) gave off a real sense of obsession and care that was quite humbling, especially given the scale of many of the pieces.

Final Project Theme: Metacities

The conceptual departure point for my final project for CSM's Foundation course lies in the idea of an "alternate city" like the Tokyo described by Julius designer Tatsuro Horikawa in an interview with scoute, "Tokyo is very much a part of who I am, but it is not the everyday Tokyo of tourists and salary-men, but more of an alternate Tokyo of the mind. A big influence on my early years was the manga and movie “Akira” which tells of Neo-Tokyo, a post apocalyptic megalopolis. It is this Tokyo which is MY Tokyo, it exists in my consciousness and in the consciousness of a whole generations who saw “Akira” , “Blade Runner” and “Mad Max”. It is a Tokyo shaped by Techno and Industrial Music and underground culture which exists right alongside the “normal” city and I was very much immersed in this kind of cyber-punk reality. My personal background is 100% based in the underground culture and I will always exist here in the Neo-Tokyo underground." I see this as an example of form following fiction: reality and fiction always inform each other.

As well as considering futuristic/alternate cities and their comprising elements as a design motif, I'm interested in considering the concept of the meta-cities that exist alongside the so called real city; the underground culture that is not necessarily experienced by those existing in the surface city and the people like those described in the previous quote using fiction and creative media to transcend the present time and space by creating a different version of a city which they can actually inhabit, making real their own "Neo-Tokyo undergrounds". Music subcultures are especially emblematic of what is sometimes referred to as an "alternative lifestyle" because of the nature of the spaces like nightclubs and concert venues, they are highly customisable and specific. I will be looking at the cyberpunk/hacker subculture that experienced popularity in the 80s/90s which I feel is one of the most cohesive and developed examples of this phenomenon, considering that it was expressed in fashion, music, literature, visual art, film, etc., and persists today.

I intend to research artists and works that deal with "the city" in this sense and to explore their intentions that will potentially shape future cities and their citizens.

Mariko Mori discusses "Primal Rhythm"

Mariko Mori from ARTINFO on Vimeo.

Mariko Mori is so cool. Described by ARTINFO, "Best known for her work featuring white-clad cybergeishas and other Manga-influenced characters, Moriko Mori has long made art characterized by a sci-fi sensibility that seems ineluctably linked to the city and the future." it's obvious why her work resonates with me. Some people already live in the future but to them it's just the present and they're making the rest of us look bad.

Research

Introduction

The purpose of this blog to serve as an ongoing reflection of my design/thought process. Initially, I'll be documenting the progress of my final project on the Foundation Art & Design course (Fashion Design pathway) at Central Saint Martins. As outlined in the Unit 7 learning outcomes and assessment criteria, I intend to use this blog to provide evidence of the breadth and depth of research, thinking, critical consideration, analysis, experimentation, adaptation, reflection, and other supplemental and vital development underlying creative output. It will function as a place to collect research and inspiration as well as self-evaluate and reflect as the project progresses and eventually document my creative experimentations and outcomes in various media; it will be an "effective presentation of work to appropriate audiences" as per unit learning outcomes. I will organize posts using the labels feature, for example: Unit 7, info file, research, reflective journal, etc., to more effectively arrange relevant information.