Strawberry Voice

"Strawberry Voice" is a piece of the artist, Mr. (one of the superflat artists apart of the Kaikai Kiki Co.). It is a pretty large piece and intitially i thought it was a tribute to or an adaptation of the baby dolls. One of the eyes being different than the other in this piece made me think of the old dolls that had the "closing eyelids" feature but now, being old and worn, one of the eyelids are broken. I also noticed the deliberate action to prevent symmetry in this piece. Such as the differences between the two eyes as well as the difference between the two pigtails. After looking at this photo further and finding other images on the web I realized that their is a lot more to this piece. "Strawberry Voice" is in fact a structure, having a room inside. AS you can see the room inside is extravagantly girly. Mizenko sensei had mentioned a scene from the film "Family Game" in which a girl had decorated her room so intensely that it had become a whole new realm that was better suited to her perceptions. In strawberry voice he plays with the idea of thought vs. reality. This girly/fictional reality that takes place only in a girls mind has now become quite real yet without leaving the confides of that girls head. Very cool piece.

The Castle of TinTin

I really liked this one out of all Murakami's works becuase the unique sense of movement that takes place in the image. Like many of his images it is a warped and distorted adaptation of the character DOB. In this photo there is an obvious sense of motion but it looks as though the movement is portrayed. That is the mass of twisted DOB faces is growing upwards. But I don't really agree with this. There is movement. The spiral of who knows what (does look similar to that of A Lonesome Cowboy) that surrounds the mass of faces suggests this. But it also gives me the sense that there is no growth and rather there was an initial ball or mass of these faces and is now being stretched and pulled upwards. Spiraling upwards as the white substance suggests. Like if you were to take dough and twist and stretch it in the same movement except the mass of faces is doing it consciously and on its own. It appears as if the mass is not only stretching upwards but forwards, into the audiences face. Murakami really depicts a twisted image he is really known for but now also in a literal sense.