rice field art

the people of Inakadate, Japan has a tradition where they grow four types of rice on their paddies into a large works of art. the idea sprung up in 1993 as a project to revitalize the community. from then on, they have done rice reproductions of the works of famous artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and even Leonardo de Vinci. each year, the team of artists and farmers determine which artwork they want to reproduce and recreate a digital image of it in dots. the dots are the precise location of the crops and the type that should be planted on the rice field. like photograph, increased amount of dots (or crops) equate to increased resolution. the dots are then transformed into different coloured reed sticks that reflect which species of rice plant to plant on that spot. in May, 700 volunteers participate in this extravagant project, planting the seed of art. the four types of rice they use are ki ine (yellow rice, yellow plant), murasaki ine (purple rice, brown plant), Beni Miyako (Red Miyako) and Tsugaru Roman (green plant). in July, one can climb up to a 22-meter-high mock castle tower overlooking the paddies to enjoy the rice creations. however, there's also 600 to 700 hundred visitors to fight with every weekend for the view. this is truely the English crop circle taken to a whole new level.

- cup of red

table manners - minale-maeda

"Fast food has no dish. Food can carry the dish instead of eating without dish"
...?!?what?!?

a fusion of food, philosophy and fashion will have your mind afluttering - trying to understand what minale-maeda is trying to create. the dutch-based designers puts a modern twist on fine dining and what we've learned about table manners from our mother. Mario Minale and Kuniko Maeda are the masterminds behind the exploration of this concept through their unusual designs. take for example their laced covered tv dinner table named "individual dining tables" with the caption "quarter dining table for individual eating printed with lace tablecloth for manners" makes fun of the concept of "table manners". they lace up toasts, disposable paper napkins and even treats plastic cutlery as if they were silver (they even call it a "plastic silverware cutlery set" for the kicks). their design scream at little old ladies, "heck with table manners, you want table manners? we'll go full out and have fast food with lace!"




one eye-popping design that seemed a little off the whole "table manners" idea is the meat tablecloth. pieces of bread, ham and cheese were sewn together and laid on a table set up for fine dining - essentially, it's saying, eat on the sandwich, not the sandwich or...

"Fast food has no dish. Food can carry the dish instead of eating without dish"

where you can learn more about minale-maeda and "table manners": http://www.minale-maeda.com/index.htm

*interesting facts: minale-maeda is also the designer of the "106% red-blue rietveld chair" noted previously in the post "red, blue and yellow - the past and present of 'de stijl'" (May 6, 2008)


- cup of red

"wash me" - reverse graffiti

remember those "wash me's" we write on the back of our dirty car? well, graffiti artist Paul Carter or "Moose" has taken it one step further by creating "reverse graffiti" on the streets. he can be seen at night with his pressure washer cleaning soot covered tunnels into beautiful murals. it makes us realize how dirty we really are...

- cup of red