A new generation is bringing a new style to the art world. The sculptor Kohei Nawa is a part of that generation. Right before our eyes he brings into existence a unique world in which the extremes of analog and digital freely mingle, and where a space is created that bridges the gap between image and object. Nawa’s art product visualizes the infinite variety of information that blankets our world and surrounds your PRISMOID mobile phone. PRISMOID captures and processes this information and the cells attached to the surface of the phone offer a visible rendition of this phenomenon. The information concealed within the cells emit a unique light and resonance, thereby giving shape to the beauty of this strange sensation. Harboring sensation and reality, these cells are amplified even further. This art product gives shape to phenomena that are normally invisible to our eyes, and so have a powerful impact by giving rise to a feeling of nostalgia. The elements incorporated into mobile phones as digital information are lifted back up into the analog world once again by means of a monitor covered by a transparent sphere. Nawa’s dynamism produces an entirely new shape by controlling the phenomena. This art product may just be pointing to the future of mobile phones.

Commercialization has yet to be determined.

ARTIST
名和 晃平
(C) OMOTE Nobutada Work created with the support of Foundation d’entreprise Hermès
Kohei Nawa Sculptor, Assistant Professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design
Nawa was born in Osaka in 1975. In 2003, he completed the doctoral program in sculpture at the Kyoto City University of Arts, Graduate School, Fine Arts Research. He has developed a diverse array of artwork using a variety of materials that include beads, prisms, silicon oil, expanded polyurethane, and glue, centered on a concept called PixCell=Pixel + Cell, that is based on an awareness of the surface of things. He is currently in the midst of a number of projects, having launched SANDWICH in Kyoto as a platform for the production and creation side of things. In 2007, Nawa was awarded the Kyoto Prefecture Culture Prize. In 2009, he opened an L_B_S exhibit at the Maison Hermes Le Forum in Tokyo. Besides participating in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2009 – 2010) held in Brisbane, he has participated in numerous other international exhibitions as well.
http://www.kohei-nawa.net/
http://sandwich-cpca.net/

  • PixCell-Elk#2
    Presents a new vision called PixCell, by covering the surface of motifs collected via the internet with transparent glass beads and replacing the outer layer of the object with a shell of light.
    © Seiji Toyonaga Work created with the support of foundation d’entreprise Hermès

  • PixCell-Elk#2
    Presents a new vision called PixCell, by covering the surface of motifs collected via the internet with transparent glass beads and replacing the outer layer of the object with a shell of light.
    © Seiji Toyonaga Work created with the support of foundation d’entreprise Hermès

  • PixCell_Saturation#2
    Bubbles that appear and disappear one after another on the surface of silicon oil, emitting white light as though it were a screen. It generates countless cells that produce visual and tactile sensation. This is the matrix from which the image is generated.
    © Seiji Toyonaga Work created with the support of foundation d’entreprise Hermès

  • PixCell_Saturation#2
    Bubbles that appear and disappear one after another on the surface of silicon oil, emitting white light as though it were a screen. It generates countless cells that produce visual and tactile sensation. This is the matrix from which the image is generated.
    © Seiji Toyonaga Work created with the support of foundation d’entreprise Hermès

  • Dot-Movie
    Dot patterns created by dripping paint drop by drop. Image installation in which you experience the conflict between mechanically arranged patterns and the instability of hand-drawn analog technology.
    Photo by OMOTE Nobutada

  • Dot-Movie
    Dot patterns created by dripping paint drop by drop. Image installation in which you experience the conflict between mechanically arranged patterns and the instability of hand-drawn analog technology.
    Photo by OMOTE Nobutada

  • Artist and his recent work “PixCell-Deer#23”
    Photo by Seiji Toyonaga

PixCell-Elk#2
Presents a new vision called PixCell, by covering the surface of motifs collected via the internet with transparent glass beads and replacing the outer layer of the object with a shell of light.
© Seiji Toyonaga Work created with the support of foundation d’entreprise Hermès