Big Noren Project at Omoide Yokochou(Memory Lane)
■Big Noren Project offers your town a memorable Street Profile Painting
Every town has the place or a building which has less cultural importance but it has many memories of a lot of people. I want to paint a such place or building together with memories which people living there has.
Omoide-yokocho was build just after World War 2nd. It has no cultural importance, so one person thinks that it just an old dirty place but for someone, it is a important place having his many memories.
The place which has many memories must be important for residents but it usually can not be conserved but broken in some near future.
I think it is so wasteful. If I have a chance to have this Street Profile Painting Project at such place, I can collect many memories about this street and record them on the Big Noren with Street Profile Painting.
I create not always a Big Noren but Byobu or Tsuitate (Japanese partition).
The next picture is Tsuitate painted Street Profile Painting on.
White and black vertical thin lines like raindrops on the picture are Japanese words which workshop attendees talked about this building during painting this picture.
The picture below is a part of the upper picture.
■Procedure of Big Noren Project creating Street Profile Painting
Our Street Profile Painting is created by the procedure below. Every step has each meaning for making communication.
1. Find a place and building which has many memory of residents there.
2. Take many pictures of the place from a variety of directions together with people loving this place.
3. Create a multi viewpoint picture by synthesising pictures taken by people.
4. Paint a line drawing sketch created from a multi viewpoint picture together with people love this place.
5. Make a Big Noren with the Street(Place) Profile Painting and exhibit it on the site.
Street Profile Painting Project is not just a painting. It's a collaborated work painted by many people loving the place. In a creating process, many people can paint this art work with pleasant conversation and also the people seeing this painting is tempted to have communication each other. This process is very important for me. My work records not only this street profile but also communication of this street.
■About artist
Communication based artist Atsushi Kasao
Currently Professor(Ph.D.) at Tokyo Polytechnic University, Faculty of Art, Department of Design.
Webcome art, Sensual Postcards, Cell phone Painter, Street Profile Painting Scroll, and so on; the works mainly creating communications by painting pictures with other people.
Main awards
first Toray Digital Creation Awards 1997: Award for Excellence.
SIGGRAPH2002 and SIGGRAPH2003 Art Gallery: selected.
Japan Media Arts Festival,Art Division: Jury Recommended Works 2004, 2005.
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ELECTRONIC ART 404(Italy);2006, 2008: selected.
http://kasao.mailpaint.com/