With 2007 entering its final throes, now is the time to look back at Pink Tentacle’s most popular stories of the year. Here is a rundown of the top ten crowd-pleasers of 2007 (based on total page views for the year). Enjoy!
1. Rice paddy art: Photos of wonderful crop art in the village of Inakadate. […]
T-shirt retailer Beams-T is handing out a free art-themed DVD magazine to customers in Japan. The DVD showcases the work of five artists from around the world, including this incredibly loony scrolling video-collage of found GIF animations put together by international man of mystery Subway Lung (a.k.a. Tokyo Windbag).
You can see the other DVD magazine […]
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced the winners of the 2007 Robot Award. The top honor of “Robot of the Year” goes to Fanuc’s super-fast two-armed industrial robot system equipped with visual tracking functions, which is optimized for work on food and pharmaceutical manufacturing lines.
Here is a short video (via PingMag) […]
This 1998 news report shows urban climber Alain Robert (a.k.a. “Spiderman”) scaling the exterior wall of a Tokyo skyscraper bare-handed. The video begins with Spiderman requesting official permission to climb a building. After being denied, he heads over to the 54-story Shinjuku Center Building, which stands 223 meters (732 feet) tall, and he quickly scurries […]
In an effort to accelerate the development of next-generation automobiles and robots, Toyota is turning to some of Japan’s top neuroscientists. According to a December 14 announcement, the automaker has teamed up with the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in a 20-year project aimed at researching the human brain and developing neurotechnology-based auto […]
Medical researchers from Osaka University Hospital have succeeded in repairing the weakened heart of a severe cardiac patient by applying thin sheets of muscle tissue grown from cells taken from the patient’s thigh. The regenerative medicine technique — described as the world’s first in which a patient waiting for an organ transplant was successfully treated […]
Omodaka’s 21st-century disco version of Kokiriko Bushi — an ancient folk song that Gokayama (Toyama prefecture) villagers used to perform for the local Shinto deities — combines synthesized vocals with a Stevie Wonder-ish bassline and ’80s video game chiptune sounds, and the wonderfully quirky and surreal video (animated by Teppei Maki) features a fragile skeleton […]
For decades in Japan, dekochari (deko means “decoration” and chari means “bicycle”) have been the ride of choice for hardcore dekotora fans that are too young to drive. Modeled after Japan’s celebrated art trucks, dekochari typically feature large front bumpers, ornate luggage racks, rear-mounted boxes that resemble truck trailers, colorful paint jobs, lots of chrome, […]
On December 6, several months after Toyota’s DJ Robot ditched its entertainment career for a job as a receptionist and renamed itself “Robina,” the auto giant unveiled a new, musically-inclined Partner Robot that can play violin. A total of 17 computer-controlled joints in its flexible arms and agile fingers allow the robot to hold the […]
In 2003, Australian public broadcaster SBS aired a 6-part documentary series titled “Subsonics,” which profiled experimental musicians from around the world. The show featured a number of artists from Japan, including Otomo Yoshihide, Masonna, Ai Yamamoto, Sachiko M, and others. Here are a few clips…
- Ai Yamamoto: Glimpse — This segment features the abstract electronic […]
