Insight into the non-stop, colorful world of artists

Posted by PSEDEN

2024-12-19

On 2024-12-19

This article appears in Volume 1 of Tokyo Weekend. 5.
To read the entire issue, click here.

In August, I visited “Art Squiggle Yokohama 2024”, a wonderful exhibition held in a warehouse at Yokohama Pier. The festival showcases many interesting, thought-provoking artists, but one piece in particular stands out: a massive metal structure, isolated within a giant black box, whose soft lighting changes the viewer’s perspective.

The structure, composed of several interconnected squares and cubes, stands in a corner and is bathed in red, green and blue light. Shining from three different directions, each light source in a constant flux of color and intensity, the metallic surface becomes the site of ever-changing hues and shades: bright pink, then purple, then pale blue. It’s a deceptively simple concept, but it opens the door to a deeper exploration of the perceptual process – according to the description that accompanies the installation, each different hue appears only once every 45 days.

The piece, titled “Hue Moments,” is one of artist Midori Kono’s latest works. Over her nearly 20-year career, she has studied countless genres and mediums, from club photography to music videos, from graphic and art direction to product and spatial design. But what remains constant is her strong visual identity: her work is dominated by unique bold colors and an intoxicating sense of 1980s nostalgia.

Kawano recently visited the TW offices, where she custom-designed a high-tech lamp, where we discussed the creative process and the joy of working between mediums and light as an expression of diversity.

determination and opportunity

Kono grew up in rural Yokohama and has been fascinated by the act of perception since childhood. “I also spent a lot of time alone looking at the ceiling and thinking about the connection between the universe and the mind,” she said. After graduating from high school in the early 2000s, she entered an art university to study product design. “I loved physics, art and making things, and I wanted to show the relationship between the micro and macro universes,” she explains, “but I didn’t know how to make a living from it.”

Somehow, she found a way. She began working as a freelancer on a dizzying array of projects that firmly entrenched her into Tokyo’s underground scene: club photography, VJing, and graphic design for event flyers. But she’s most interested in the medium of music video—something she attributes to a trip to India in college.

“I traveled extensively and immersed myself in the sights and excitement of India, listening to music on my Walkman as I moved from place to place,” she recalls. “Electronic, techno and traditional Indian music soundtracked my travels…the juxtaposition of music and environment inspired my creative mind and opened my mind to a world of possibilities. It made me want to make videos ”

music videos and collaborations

She became famous for producing psychedelic videos for a range of electronic artists including Evisbeats and De De Mouse, with whom she began to collaborate regularly. This is where she really started to hone her style. Take De De Mouse’s “Baby’s Star Jam” video, which premiered in 2007. Kono directed the video, and the visuals are filled with themes that continue to appear in her work—Egyptological and astrological symbols float across the screen, covered in a kaleidoscope of color, and juxtaposed with psychedelic imagery.

“A lot of my images are vintage,” she muses. “There weren’t that many people creating stuff like this back then, although I think it’s pretty popular now.”

Kono’s passion for music is evident in much of her work, which has led her down a variety of creative paths. She has designed album covers, art directed and produced visual effects for artists including Tavito Nanao and Wednesday Campanella. She was also very interested in the female form and femininity. Most recently, she joined Ebizazan, a creative team of models, photographers, hairstylists, and makeup artists, as Art Director. Together they create striking, surreal images, bizarre fragments of otherworldly life, bright colors and sumptuous materials; two years ago, their surreal, gorgeous photographs of avant-garde dancer Aoi Yamada were featured in Vogue magazine.

“My interests change depending on the medium,” Kono said. She prefers to change her stance on something before it becomes popular. “When I switch mediums, it deepens the depth of my expression.”

change and development

Although Kono’s oeuvre is varied, a project that returns to the past is not out of the question. Her deep interest in the interplay between color and light remained with her throughout her career, as evidenced by the changing tones and shades of “Tone Moments.” In 2020, she released a product that crystallized this obsession: RGB_Light, an innovative lamp with three bulbs—one red, one green, and one blue. It has a UFO shape and is designed to be hung from the ceiling or other high places.

Using the three primary colors of light, lamps cause objects to cast colored shadows. Via a smartphone app, you can control the intensity and angle of each bulb, creating custom vibrant silhouettes in a variety of hues. Kono originally designed this piece for a school project in 2005, adopting a more original college-school style (minus smartphones, of course). “In college, I would often get things that were all form and no function — like lipstick packaging, but it wasn’t lipstick.”

She showed off the 2020 upgrades in the interview, and they were impressive. Although the concept is so simple – three different light bulbs – the visual effect is stunning. Even an office pencil turns into a marvelous object when placed underneath, glowing with multi-colored shades.

“Although more than ten years have passed between the time I designed it and the time I presented it, no one in the world has designed anything like it,” Kono said. “During that time, my view of light changed. As a work of art, I began to see it as a visible expression of diversity. If there was only one light, the shadow would be black, but if there was With two or more lights, the shadows will be colored.”

overseas expansion

The RGB_Light is available in Japan, and Kono said she recently received a U.S. patent and hopes to start marketing the product overseas. “In Japan, houses and spaces are small, but in countries such as the United States, there is a lot of space to display light and use it to its full potential. It can be in office entrance halls, children’s playrooms, music bars…”

It’s typical of Kono, constantly dreaming of the next thing – something bigger, something she hasn’t tried yet. One can’t help but wonder if there’s any medium she hasn’t explored yet, and what the next step will be. “The vague dreams of my youth are taking shape,” she told Taiwan. “I want to challenge myself more with a big show like ‘Art Squiggle.'” Perhaps her next move?