Official PR blurb:

W+K東京LABは2003年の立ち上げ以来、HIFANA、高木正勝、AFRA、DJ Uppercutの作品を、ほぼすべてのタイトルで、DVD＋CDという形態でリリースしつづけている。ハイブリッドをコンセプトに、さまざまな要素を融合させた音楽をリリースするだけにとどまらず、早くから音楽を軸としたオーディオビジュアル体験を創出することに着目。今、ここ東京でしか生まれない表現を追求しつづけてきた。レーベル設立5周年、記念すべき10枚目のリリースはDVD+BOOK+BLOG で構成された“TOKYO.点”。このリリースをセレブレイトするライブイベントを、LIQUIDROOMで開催する。ここで、新しい体験を垣間見ることができる。ここから、新しい旅がはじまる。つぎの“点”へ。

Since W+K Tokyo Lab was launched in 2003, we’ve continued to produce CD+DVD releases for our artists Hifana, Takagi Masakatsu, Afra, and DJ Uppercut. Embracing the concept of hybrid, all our releases have been experiments in audio-visual expression and beyond, while striving to create a new experience that could only be born in Tokyo. Now that we’ve come 5 years along in this journey, this month we present our tenth release, a DVD+Book+Blog, called Tokyo.点, and to celebrate it, we’ll hold our biggest and best party at Liquidroom, featuring live performances by five of our artists. Come and share this experience with us as we kick off a new phase in the journey of W+K Tokyo Lab.

Tokyo.Ten : Live
W+K Tokyo Lab 5th Anniversary
2008/07.24/THU
Liquidroom
OPEN : 18:00 START : 19:00
Ticket : ￥3,000 (tax in, no drink)

Live Performances by:
Hifana
DJ Uppercut
Afra & The Incredible Beatbox Band
Jemapur
鎮座DOPENESS + Kochitola Haguretic Emcee’s

Thanks to our sponsors:
Amana Group, Claska, and special visual technology partner, Crescent.

Seriously though, this is gonna be an awesome event. The first time since our founding that all the lab artists (well, unfortunately one couldn’t join actually) will be performing together in one show. We’re planning some cool visual stuff for the show as well. Come check it!

I’ve been waiting for this half my life. In fact, one big project I did while studying graphic design was to create a concept for an imaginary magazine and design it. I came up with a magazine called Introvert, that was supposed to connect gaming to a broader context of aesthetics and the interactive arts. I remember feeling so passionately at the time that this magazine absolutely needed to exist. I think that was around 2003 or so.

Well, I was recently in Paris, and Digiki happened to have the first issue of a curious stack of glossy bound pages that a friend of his was involved in creating. It’s called Amusement, and as far as I can tell, it’s very close to the videogame magazine I imagined that I’d be salivating over, and more.

Someone finally did it. Fuck yes. These people realize that gaming is a major pop culture event, to be reckoned alongside fashion, and music, and all those other things that make the shiny young people in this world sparkle in the way that they do. But more importantly, they did not merely realize this fact, but acted on it. In fact, games are the tastiest pop cultural morsel of this century, and its about time someone acknowledged it from a bold new journalistic angle. The music industry is in the toilet, games have been generating more revenue than the movie industry for years, and keen consumers must be aware that while Hollywood is keen to recycle the same formulas, gaming’s key innovations are still to be discovered, the best new experiences still to be had. So can we please let gaming take its place on the world stage of cool already, where it so rightfully belongs.

Amusement seems to be a bold step in this direction, and a quick look at the intro animation on their website will reveal as much. From my estimation you’ll be as likely to see art or fashion inspired by gaming culture (Space Invader graffiti), as interviews with creative motherfuckers who play games (did I see Sebastien Tellier?), as you would an actual game review. I cannot confirm all my assumptions, because I don’t have a copy of Amusement in front of me, nor could I read the French, even if I did. But as you can probably tell, just the knowledge that it exists is inspiring to me. We can only hope this is the start of something much bigger.

The setup:

The party, ground floor:

In the gallery, 2nd floor (there is another gallery on the 7th, which I didn’t shoot in):

The Bohla watch continues to generate conversation the world over, this time, with Alvin and Maki

People:
Mark, always with his fish-eye equipped

Maki and Kiyo-chan

W+K girls, Lina and Mai-chan

Jemapur, our next artist for Lab, was one of the DJs tonight, with WOOG and Uppercut.

Hutch, AD of W+K whose work is also included in Tokyo.Ten

Shingo, aka Merce Death, AD of W+K who also performed live

Woog and I

No forgetting though, this is a Tokyo Lab party, a record label after all, and the musical showcase is saved for another party on the 24th. And I fear there will be a whole lot of preparation to do between now and then.

The book itself will be out from 7.01, and I would recommend picking it up at Roppongi’s ACB, where there will be a sort of Tokyo.Ten takeover in the store. I found some nice photos of the book on CBCNET (where did they get those?)!

I almost forgot, +cruz, Woog, Sun An, and myself will do an exhibition of personal work starting next weekend also at Claska. As usual, the info is over at wktokyolab.com/ten. Busy days ahead, not even thinking yet about the status of ‘real’ client projects.

Pardon my sudden intrusion into this long and dull period of silence, but I’ve decided to start using muxtape. I’ve found it a bit buggy, but incredibly tasteful, and really the bugs are forgivable given that it’s been masterminded entirely by a single young developer. Anyhow, my muxtape for now will be the new spiritual home of my deceased podcast, so for anyone who enjoyed that, please give it a listen. Muxtape allows you only 12 songs at a time, but luckily I’m the kind of person who often finds constraints liberating, especially in a creative sense. As the mix changes, you won’t be able to listen to the previous tracks, so if you are interested, better take note. I’ll continue to try and focus mainly on Japanese music, anywhere from sugary stupid pop songs to the proudly obtuse and obscure. Credit for the Hi Posi track in the current mix goes to Digiki, who left it on my hard drive during our Drag+Drop production process. Listen here.

Brand Tags is an interesting site that gives a fascinating picture of the free associations people have with a number of brands. Some of the biggest associations for Nike: Sports, Sweatshop, Child Labor. For Apple: Awesome, Innovative, Expensive. Suggestion to the creator of this site: Think about implementing a system that groups those tags together that are essentially the same meaning. For example, Apple has an similarly heavy tag for both the words innovation and innovative. If both were recognized as essentially one tag, a more accurate reaction could be garnered.

An interesting video with a heavy use of programming, courtesy of Aaron Koblin. What is most interesting to me in this situation is that although there seems to be a trend emerging of music videos made with code, it has been confined mostly to individuals doing it with a very DIY spirit (ie unofficially borrowing music, and just posting the video for their friends). This one however is maybe the most blatant example I can think of of the trend crossing into the mainstream with a high profile band and big visibility. Could this momentum continue to explode? There certainly seems to be no shortage of ‘data artists’ who are popping up in ever greater numbers. The niche and minutiae of coding music videos can actually be traced very well by following just one man’s blog: Flight 404.

Below are Perfume again, during their middle-school days.

Great new site, Hello World for Softbank by THA. Reminiscent of Groovisions and somehow even reminds me of Katamary Damashii. Use the full screen mode. Wonderful!