Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
‘ I asked old friend and artist Souther Salazar about his art show. He replied with this, “The show is about inclusion…falling in love, opening up and inviting someone else in…sharing the joy and excitement of adventures through the act of storytelling, and creating places where stories themselves can continue to develop and grow through other people’s eyes.” Yes, this sounds just like the art he’s been making since I met him as a recent Art Center grad years ago. GR: How has your move to a more smaller town changed your work? It always had a small town feel to it. Has it pushed it in a different direction? SS: Yeah, I think it’s had a big impact. Before, I guess the small town element came out more in the memories of exploring a neighborhood. But my whole world these days is not so much a small town or a neighborhood, but the world of all the life on the river, and my life with Monica and these animals. I have a lot of quiet time to observe, and to focus more on my favorite sources of inspiration. The elements of our life together in seclusion and the river world are in every piece. Click on them to see them larger! GR: Although disasters, war, and so many bad things happen in the world, and we’re bombarded by those images, how do they stay out of your work? SS: I’ve had escapist tendencies my whole life, and I know how to escape much better than I know how to create a dialogue. I try to make work that’s honest, if it’s not honest about the nature of the world, hopefully it is at least honest about the nature of my mind. I’ve tried to shape my escapism into something that actually contributes back to the world in a positive way. When I focus on the negative, it overwhelms me and I start to shut down, and I lose my motivation to create. But when I can go into my little turtle shell and have some freedom to explore and escape into my imagination, I am infinitely more productive and happy. Once I’m in that space, I can process and layer emotions and memories into the worlds I create, and only then do I actually feel like I can emerge with something I believe in that I can hold up and share with the world. I’ve always been that way. Like you said, we are bombarded. Sometimes, I feel like the only way to shout out something you believe in over all the noise and craziness is to provide a quiet argument for the things worth living for. I’m trying to create my quiet argument in the form of a tiny little bubble that floats over the battlefield. GR: Tell me about those pieces that look like terrariums? Your works have a free sweeping feeling, but some might say terrariums have a finite feeling. SS: Those pieces each started very...
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The Quake Book – Interview with Our Man in Abiko I read about the Quake book on a one of the countless website that’s publishing about the disaster. This one caught my eye since it’s not a long form story book, but one using social media as the content aggregator. It’s speed of being made – one week sounded astounding and as I researched further, past GR contributor, SF Bay area resident Dan Ryan is one of the volunteers for the project. He began his contribution as editor and PR person just by sending an offer to help. Now on the verge of being released, this publication is rich in stories of the quake and it’s aftermath. The short texts are touching and include words by GR friend William Gibson. This will probably be the first of numerous books related to the quake and it’s process of involving social media couldn’t be more apt. GR: You’ve sort of kept your identity mysterious, why? OMIA: Several reasons. The first, is that this is a collective effort for charity. It seems immoral to take credit for something that, yes, I started, but has directly involved more than 200 people around the globe in an effort to help people really suffering from the devastation caused by the earthquake, tsunami and radiation disasters. Everyone in the project has given their time for free. This is not my story, it’s Japan’s story. A secondary reason is I don’t want to subject my family to the glare of the media. To be clear, I’m not so much hiding my identity as choosing to adopt the pen name and persona of Our Man in Abiko, a redundant British agent who has found his voice in defence of Japan. It wouldn’t be hard to find my true identity, but I ask you not to. It’s more fun this way. GR: Publishing at this speed is amazing but it seems to be with some problems. Which were most frustrating? OMIA: The frustration comes from completing a draft book in one week, which is what I promised (and we delivered by Jove!) and then finding that it’s taken us over two weeks to get it published. The book world is not used to working at our pace, and it has struggled to keep up. But, it has been worth the wait because now, rather than just sell a few thousand copies from our own blog, we have the potential to sell hundreds of thousands from Amazon, who have promised to waive all fees, which is amazing and understandably took some maneuvering for their organization, which takes time. (this is just the bottom half of the book cover – the main image is the top) GR: I know one motivation is to help via book sales, but what do you think will happen when people sit and read the stories? OMIA: Of course we want the book to sell oodles and boodles (that’s a technical term) but that wasn’t...
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One day I’m going to figure out this augmented reality. We had an advertisement in Giant Robot magazine with Toyota that came with some glasses that became a game when you went to a site. I sort of got it, but didn’t exactly. It seemed like it was premature for it to be a household understanding. By Dentsu, these are cute characters that will somehow be augmented reality related and this will change the world? Change or “swap” parts, and see how they’ll react to their environments via apps. Not quite clear, but they’re cute and we’ll see how they roll out. Here are some more images on flickr. How they’ll be available, if at all, we’ll also have to see. Read more at Dentsu blog. [youtube]sBmLWdjtzPw[/youtube]
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The four reactors from Daiichi already in a game?! It’s just art in the end and look how great they look compared to how beat to crap they really are. Although there’s some negative feedback about it, this is so raw and inaccurate that perhaps that’s the travesty of it all. Bound to happen, I hope it’s done one day really well perhaps not just as a game, but as an “alternate reality” just so someone can understand what it’s like there. Here’s the link for it if you want to play it.
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Remember the post about the mayor who needed break. His town is near the nuclear danger zone, many evacuated, but many are still there. He needed supplies and help but was cut off and in danger of not having anything for his people. He made a YouTube video and lo and behold, he got 200,000 views and is getting calls of help and much needed supplies. As reported in The New York Times, some Katsunobu Sakurai remarks, “Suddenly, the world was extending its hand to us,” said Mr. Sakurai, 55, an energetic man who still wears the same beige uniform as in the video, but now smiles and seems more relaxed. “We learned we’re not alone.” The idea of using social networking, in this case a plea via YouTube worked well for a town who probably never thought of using this type of technology. I’d like to think that because this worked here, perhaps more could will use it where they see fit. This is just another small reason to have free wifi everywhere which will then hopefully get people more involved in using technology instead of waiting for media and bureaucracies to catch up with their work – which may never come through. NY Times
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