About the Work “sonus-oleum ; Sonosorium” is a live installation in which visitors can experience works in different forms on each of the three floors of the ship-shaped facility (T-LOTUS M): B1F, 1F, and the rooftop. With the premise that “music becomes the energy that moves the ship,” the work explores the form of music born inside the ship through the following four formats. Live Performance 1 — The Birth of Music — This work begins with a live performance on B1F. The music is an original piece composed by Fumitake Ezaki specifically for this live installation. The performance is by Fumitake Ezaki (piano), Shuntaro Tsuneta (violin), Sonoko Muraoka (cello), and an automatic piano. The venue was designed with eight 3 m × 4 m screens installed on both sides of the performers, enveloping visitors in music and imagery. Real-time motion graphics synchronized with the instruments were projected onto the screens. The elements composing the real-time motion graphics are the piano’s output of keyboard input (88 keys), the strength and duration of pedal presses, and the hand movements of the violin and cello players captured using ring devices. The real-time motion graphics linked to the performers’ movements depict the energy of music being generated and floating upward to the upper levels. Interactive Installation — Variation through Images — The energy of the music born in the B1F live performance appears as bubbles within the interactive work on 1F. Seven 2.4 m × 2.4 m translucent screens were installed throughout the 1F space in alignment with the windows, and interactive visuals were projected onto them. When visitors touch the bubbles displayed on each screen, the bubbles split, and each note of the original piece transforms into a different timbre. Variations born from chance continue to be generated endlessly. Projection Mapping — Music Creates Wind — The variations generated on 1F rise further to the rooftop, where they create the wind that moves the ship. Using four large 30,000-lumen projectors, the wind stirred up by the power of music and striking the sails was projected above the visitors’ heads. Live Performance 2 — A Session with Returned Sound — In the second live performance held on B1F, the automatic piano played in real time the variations generated by visitors touching the bubbles on 1F, while Ezaki (piano), Tsuneta (violin), and Muraoka (cello) improvised along with it. The interplay of visitor-generated variations, improvised live performance, and real-time motion graphics evoked a new form of music. Through these four processes, this live installation created a landscape in which sound was “unlearned” and transformed into new sounds, continuing in circulation. The title “sonus-oleum ; Sonosorium” is a coined word combining sonus, meaning sound, and petroleum, meaning oil.

Nissan Pavilion, an experiential entertainment facility where visitors can experience Nissan’s proud technologies and vision for the future, opened for a limited time in Yokohama Minato Mirai. Its concept is “Expanding Human Possibilities.” Among the experiential content that gives form to a near-future made possible by Nissan’s technology, WOW was responsible for the direction and production of THE CITY area. Visitors can experience an installation inspired by a “city energized by the connection between cars, people, and society.” In THE CITY, two of Nissan’s envisioned futures were visualized within the space. ROOM1 In a smoke-filled space, 195 laser modules and the motors that move them were installed. Each laser is individually controlled to create a variety of animations, and when a visitor enters the area, the system detects their presence and takes evasive action, making it an interactive space. This abstractly expresses the key sensing technologies that Nissan is pursuing in order to realize a society with zero traffic accidents. ROOM2 Approximately 150 translucent pillars of varying heights, abstracting a “city,” and three pillars with mock car units placed on top, representing “cars,” were arranged throughout the space, with all pillars self-illuminated. The light animations representing “CHARGE,” “SHARE,” and “SUPPLY,” which begin when a hand is placed over the car mock-up, express Nissan’s vision of a city energized through the sharing of energy and information. In addition, when hands are placed over all three pillars with the mock-ups at the same time, a special effect triggers a vividly colorful light animation. The production was designed to evoke a city that becomes increasingly vibrant as cars, people, and society connect. Both spaces were designed as immersive environments that, while abstract, allow visitors to feel Nissan’s vision for the future. Nissan Pavilion Period: August 1, 2020 (Sat) – October 23, 2020 (Fri) Address: 6-2-1 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa NISSAN PAVILION Yokohama▶https://www.nissan.co.jp/BRAND/PAVILION/ For more detail▶https://www.w0w.co.jp/works/nissan_pavilion

With the theme of “reconstructing the orchestra through technology,” the “Yoichi Ochiai × Japan Philharmonic Project” launched in 2018. Again this year, WOW participated as the “performer of images” in the “____ Music Concert,” or rather, the “Twin Music Concert.” While the past two years had focused on creating a space where audiences could experience new appeal and value in the orchestra, this year the project sought to explore what an orchestra could be during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to a theater performance with a limited audience, the concert was also streamed online, aiming to offer a performance where new appeal could be experienced from two perspectives. In the theater performance, the audience experienced innovative music that opened up a new era of multidirectional sound in space, alongside image performers projected onto screens. In the online stream, the project pursued a sense of immediacy through concert-quality 2K video including AR imagery, industry-leading sound quality (AAC-LC 384 kbps), and three-dimensional visual direction made possible only through digital means. The visual experience of this performance centered on the AR imagery in the online stream, while the theater screens featured visuals that synchronized with, responded to, and contrasted with the AR imagery. Each offered a different yet equally valuable experience. In addition, by allowing theater audiences to later watch the online performance when it was re-streamed, the project sought to create a synergistic effect in which the performance could be relived from a different perspective. In visualizing the clues discovered through examining the music, the project did not rely on conventional notions of AR or stage visual direction, but instead aimed, as “image performers,” to create visual effects that accompanied the world of the music from two different perspectives, with the hope that each would be recognized as having its own new value. The title used up to just before the performance, “____ Music Concert,” was intended to express how the originally planned concert had been wiped away by COVID-19, and how a new concert was then pursued through trial and error. It also encouraged each viewer to think about the word that would fill the blank in the title. Near the end of the performance, the word corresponding to the “____” was revealed, and as the “Twin Music Concert,” a new concert was born from the search for what form a music concert could take during the pandemic.

BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE is a bag brand built on an innovative concept and production method that freely creates endless forms by combining pieces. Its triangular structure transforms the shape, bringing beauty, delight, and surprise born of chance to the user, while also offering practicality that functions in every aspect of daily life. In “Shape with a world,” the infinite forms that define the BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE concept are expressed through motifs inspired by various objects and phenomena in the natural world. Phenomena abstracted through the BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE structure are endowed with new meaning and beauty, creating a unique world. Through this process, the work explores the appeal of the organic, distinctive forms and movements generated by its triangular structure.

From August 3 to September 29, 2019, the light installation Emerge, which stirs deep inside a cave at the foot of a mountain in the Hama area, was exhibited at the Reborn-Art Festival held in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. This cave was built by the former Imperial Japanese Navy during the war to store torpedoes, and after several decades in the postwar years, the area around its entrance has become covered with vegetation, while the surface of the rock is mossy, creating an atmosphere that evokes a primordial sense of power. Emerge displays a variety of expressions in the darkness, sometimes violently tracing random paths, allowing viewers to feel “anima”—life dwelling within movement.

About the Work Shibuya Stream, which opened on September 13, 2018, is a large-scale mixed-use complex built on the former platform and track site of the long-disused Tokyu Toyoko Line Shibuya Station, as well as the surrounding land. The project was launched with the concept of sharing to the world the new things and new experiences born from encounters, exchanges, and challenges here, and of creating a new current for the next era as a “sacred place for creative workers.” This project aims to foster new cultural creation in Shibuya and revitalize the area south of Shibuya Station. Targeting “creative people,” it was designed as a place where inspiration arises in everyday life. WOW was responsible for the environmental design and experiential design of the giant video wall installed at the entrance to the 100-meter-long second-floor through passage directly connected to Shibuya Station, as well as the large staircase leading toward Meiji-dori Avenue. Design Intent This facility, developed through public-private collaboration and also contributing to the restoration of the Shibuya River, serves as an icon for the area south of Shibuya Station, while taking care not to impose creativity or trends. In the second-floor through passage, an acoustic environment creates a “gentle boundary” that softens outside noise, and within that setting, a pseudo-natural environment formed by phenomenological visuals is intended to draw out the inner imagination of both daily users and visitors passing through. The overall design concept is called “INNER STREAM,” and it comprises three environmental installations. 1. Invisible Stream | Giant video wall installed at the second-floor entrance of Shibuya Stream The thinking process of creative workers, from their first idea to the final finish, is visualized as a flow: Invisible Stream. Centered on the theme of “Stream,” the work presents final visuals inspired by phenomenological motifs such as water, rivers, mist, and light, while also exhibiting various study processes in CG and programmable expression. By linking these elements to the viewer’s own imagination, the installation was designed to allow each person to experience a different visual encounter. 2. Fall Stream | Staircase space toward Meiji-dori Avenue with embedded video installation A visual composition in which sound seems to pour from a vortex of sound into the grand staircase. By using phenomenological motifs such as waterfalls and water, the work seeks to create a sense of unity with the Shibuya River and offer visitors a soothing spatial experience. 3. Barrier Stream | Acoustic environment of the second-floor through passage and grand staircase The acoustic environment was realized through a collaboration with evala [See by Your Ears], a musician and sound artist with the concept of “Sound Architecture.” The concept took inspiration from the Shibuya Stream space, where wind blowing through is especially striking. Sounds were devised to harmonize with this place, where outside sounds such as trains and cars can also be heard. Water sounds field-recorded at the Shibuya River were blended in throughout, and like a natural phenomenon in which trees sway and waves rise when the wind blows, new melodies are continuously generated so that no two moments are ever the same. By using speakers placed along the connecting passageways, the program blocks urban noise and creates an environment that enhances inner creativity.

Description: The endless forms created by BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE’s primitive triangular pieces are expressed through motifs inspired by various objects and phenomena in nature. Phenomena abstracted by the BAO BAO structure are endowed with new meaning and beauty, creating a distinctive world. Through this process, the work explores the fascination of the organic and unique forms and movements produced by a triangular structure. www.baobaoisseymiyake.com

An experimental video installation work using 20 transparent organic EL displays.