Made in Japan – Volume 23

This week:
Making a Life-size Gummy Coke Bottle, Pentacom’s Toy Camera Simulator, The Raygun Project, New iPhone Apps from Made in Japan Faves, Cut Your Own Hair – Cleanup’s a Snap!, Smoking Sneaker Mods, What Happens if You Apply Electricity To…, The Sine Wave Orchestra.

Making a Life-size Gummy Coke Bottle
The adventurous Japanese at DPZ have made a life-size version of those delicious gummy cola bottle candies by making a mold of an actual Coke bottle and then filling the mold with cola-infused gelatin-heavy deliciousness. Leaving no detail ignored, they even managed to get a bit of transparency at the top of the bottle, just like the candies. A well-documented journey through this strangely awesome project.

Toy Camera Simulator
There’s something magical about pictures taken from old toy cameras. If you can find the film for them, you will be treated with photos that take on a timeless mystique all their own. If you can’t find/afford the film for one of these sweet cameras, you can still fake the funk, because Pentacom.jp released their Toy Camera Photoshop plugin some time ago, although many were bummed out because it required the pricey Photoshop host. Whine no more! Now you don’t need the expensive full-on Photoshop to enjoy the toy camera-rific effects of this plugin, as there now a standalone version. Holga/Lomo-esque effects without their hard-to-find film, here at the download page.

The Raygun Project
Artist Sakaue-san made these retro-futuristic model guns for the 「raygun」 project, projecting these colorful weapons from imagination into real-life models. A few of these models will even be mass-produced, and will sell in the U.S. and Japan for around $100 (including a display stand). Check out more raygun variations at the gallery.

New iPhone Apps from Made in Japan Faves
In case you haven’t heard enough about iPhones for the past few days… The iPhone officially became available in Japan on Friday, and I was happy to see lots of native apps from a few Made in Japan faves at the new iPhone App Store. Veteran iPhone hacker Masayuki Akamatsu‘s Alarm, Yes/No, and Banner applications (apps that have been around for quite some time for unlocked iPhones) have been given the official treatment and are available more legitimately as App Store apps (iTunes link). Sonic pioneer Nao Tokui‘s sound/accelerometer-based Mosquito game (see the video below) and World 9 (enhances your real-life jumps with Super Mario Bros.-style sound effects) have also been made available. Check it!:

Cut Your Own Hair – Cleanup’s a Snap!
I think the picture here pretty much explains it all. I wasn’t able to find a whole lot of info on this one, as it comes from the interesting but mysteriously un-linky J-Tokkyo, but as you can see, here’s a product that makes cleanup a breeze when you cut your own hair. Admittedly, I do sometimes resort to cutting my own hair, and Christmas is just around the corner, so…

Smoking Sneaker Mod
You know how when people run in comic books there’s this cloud of smoke that trails their feet? The folks at DPZ hacked some shoes to create a (somewhat) similar effect in real life by filling old air duster pouches with powder. The result:

What Happens if You Apply Electricity To…
Satto-san answers what seems to be pretty much every possible question about what happens when you apply very high voltages to everyday objects. Using a 15,000V power supply, they applied electrical charges to a variety of items. Dead flourescent lamps shine again, 2V LEDs blink weakly, water sparks, ice cubes sizzle. Definitely awesome, but the whole thing made me a little bit nervous. It might go without saying, but don’t try this at home unless you really know what you’re doing. [Via MAKE: Japan]

The Sine Wave Orchestra
Anyone who’s messed around with sine waves can probably tell you that there’s something magical that can happen when you get a few of them going together (basically, the fabric of the universe is revealed in total rhythmic harmony). Japan’s Sine Wave Orchestra revels in the glory of the sine wave, and travels the world inviting the audience to bring their own sine wave makers to their performances. I’ve heard that their shows are simply transcendent.

The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA(S.W.O.) is a participatory sound performance project that has been started since 2002 by four core members (FURUDATE Ken, JO Kazuhiro, ISHIDA Daisuke, NOGUCHI Mizuki). Under the concept that each participant plays a sine wave, people are invited in public to create a sea of sine waves as collective sound representation. By taking in different environment and style. Through sharing/separating the time and the space, the sine wave played by each participant interferes with each other and represents a communication among the participants as an abstract form.

Thanks a lot for reading, see you next week!
–Mike