Back in Tokyo...

Back in Tokyo for a short time for the 9th Japan Media Arts Festival. This year's festival is in the same location as last year's, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Ebisu. Its a nice location, with the exhibition taking up the 3 floors of the Museum. The first floor is the lecture hall and the second and third floors are the animation/still imagery and the interactive art gallery, respectively.

Walking around Tokyo is great. Even when you were just here a couple months ago things change so quickly. New stores come and go and new buildings suddenly are erected where old ones stood. This abstract glass building is between Harajuku and Omotesando.

Here is a new phone from AU that has a nice LED display imbedded into it's shell. So when the display is not on it is invisible. Very slick, though the phone itself is a bit large and I'm not a fan of how it looks when open, clunky.

This is from the inside of the brand new Tadao Ando designed Omotesando Hills. While the outside front facade of the building is very boring (think of a 3 story concrete apartment building), the inside is actually pretty interesting. The building reveals itself to be more triangular in nature with the shopping center being one continuous spiral lined with ultra high-end stores. Where do the Japanese get the money for their obsession with luxury goods? I haven't the slightest.