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Into the Mild
Today’s Monday morning commute takes me past the southern tip of the Japanese mainland to the island of Yakushima with a heavy back-to-back agenda of, doing nothing for a week. Well OK, maybe a little...
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Neighbourhood Brands
The National Panasonic logo has a particular significance in the landscape of urban Japan – where many neighbourhoods host one of it’s petit electronics stores. I’m guessing that they’ve been hit hard...
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Blood is for Suckers
Manage to pick up a number of new friends on the trail, or to be perfectly accurate – negotiating a storm swollen river whilst trying to keep my pack lofted out of the water. Their discovery comes in...
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Nudity in Context I
I’ve got an hour before the next transport trundles by, so it’s off to the local onsen – where the pool just so happens to be situated a pebble’s throw to the beach on the outskirts of Yudomori – and...
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Puri Kura’d
The conceptual distance between an activity (photography) and the use of content and materials created through that activity. Like doodling on the cover of a sketchbook.
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Youthful Abstractions
Kids paintings are the supermarket’s keep-the-kid’s-occupied/mum-happy medium of choice – from the A-Coop in Onoaida. Somewhat surprising? The volume of facial hair sported in many of the pictures –...
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Into the Less Mild
It’s raining hard by the time I manage to find the start of the trail, tantalisingly located next to the local onsen. Two old dears, cooling off on a wooden bench after a morning’s bathe stare, and...
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Home Textures
The inherent character of spaces. The extent to which the notion of inside and outside becomes mute. Photos from a traditional Yakushima house with sliding walls and a large veranda – allowing the...
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Brand Warmth
Ah, the brands we know and love – the comforting yellow glow of an Iwatani Primus cannister – pleasantly reassuring given the backdrop of nature with it’s uneven surfaces and earthy colour palettes,...
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Lunch / Read
It’s fairly typical for neighbourhood restaurants to supply a range of weekly manga for customers – most office workers eat out for lunch.
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Mobile Phone Airline e-Ticketing
The scanner at the JAL ticket gate, Yakushima airport for reading the QR bar code of the e-ticketon the mobile phone display.
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Nudity in Context II
And continuing on the thread of nudity in Japanese society – the now outdated practice of pixelating pubic hair in pornographic videos. More information on its history here and a dissected pixelated...
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Two-handed Interaction Styles
Interaction style on this musical instrument of unknown origin of a Zimbabwian Mbira – ably demonstrated by the owner of the Green Shower cafe, Yudomori.
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Call 119
Given the extensive use of emergency phone numbers in un/popular culture – the extent that it’s easier to remember the emergency number from another country? A comprehensive list of emergency numbers...
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Expected Use
A timer left by the previous tenants in the bathroom of this Yakushima home. For timing younglings toothbrush activities.
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Personalised Apology in a Group Context
A member of the ground crew (left of picture) stands with head bowed, apologising to passengers for technical delays. For every culture and/or industry: whether customers expect an apology; whether it...
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Addictive or Subtractive?
What body parts do you use for counting? In western societies its common to count using primary hand, thumb first, then fingers before repeating the process on the next hand. In Japan the digits are...
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Retrospective Facial Recognition
For any given culture what are the drivers and mechanisms for obscuring / censoring portions of content? How will the recording and pixellation of pornography and/or other societal taboo subjects...
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EV Charging Design Norms
There are new shapes and forms popping up in cities around the world: electric charging stations, the design of which has yet to settle.
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