Ryota Kuwakubo
http://www.vector-scan.com/

“My mother has packed my school lunch box once in such a way that the contents were in the form of a face… but then I could never get myself to eat them.” (Ryota Kuwakubo)

Human beings acquire the ability to recognize faces and differentiate among them during the first few months of life. The face is the most familiar pattern in the world to us, which is why we also tend to discover faces almost everywhere we look: in technical equipment, on the Moon, in the clouds.

But we react especially emotionally at the sight of big eyes—in complete accordance with the “infant schema,” this facial feature exerts a powerful stimulus to engage in care-giving behavior.

“Nicodama” combines findings from the field of behavioral biology (ethology) with technology and Japanese philosophy. Wherever the big eyes are set up, faces emerge. The “Nicodamas” communicate with each other via infrared interface and blink at random intervals that can’t be influenced externally.

In Japanese culture, one proceeds under the assumption that everything—whether it’s animate or inanimate—has a soul. The upshot of this conception is care and increased respect in dealing with the environment—regardless of whether this is a matter of human beings or physical objects.

“Nicodama” enables us to get a completely new, emotional view of our environment and the objects that surround us. It thus expands the objectifying, quantitatively measuring, and strategic worldview of our day and age.