@Ginza Graphic Gallery
John maeda: paper and computer


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Just before I left Japan to start my post at MIT, I was honored with an exhibition at the Ginza Graphic Gallery mounted in the upper and lower levels of the gallery. A total of 15 PowerBooks (a then unheard of number) were placed alongside 50 offset-printed images to emphasize the title "John Maeda: Kami to Computer" which translates to "John Maeda: Paper and Computer" with an intended pun of the Japanese word kami as phonetically meaning "paper" or "god (spirit)."

At the time, the web was just taking off as an expressive medium, and all of my experiments in print and computing began to serve as useful blueprints for an incredibly talented younger generation. I could see quite clearly what was coming, and this exhibition was my attempt to put a definitive ending on my line of thinking.


>Upper and Lower Levels, Ginza Graphic Gallery in Tokyo

>Exhibition Poster for the Tokyo Showing

>Exhibition Poster for the Osaka Showing

> Lithograph Overview

The following images were rendered in 1997 for the web and thus are low quality ones (my apologies). I hope to get around to re-rendering these at high-res for download. They are all printed in my MAEDA@MEDIA book.

We will be offering these limited edition lithographs (only 2 to 10 in existence per imprint) to the public to raise money for relief in Asia until February 1, 2005. They all measure 728mm by 1030mm untrimmed, printed on Vent Nouveau stock in 2 to 5 colors, depending upon image. Where I have no more copies, the images are listed as N/A.

(Links from the icons below seem to work best from the Firefox browser as I am using Javascript ...)

Infinity (A1—A1 N/A)
Everything started with infinity. A simple diagram of 10,000 gently repeating loops with 0.1 point linewidths on silver paper.

   

• Morisawa 10 (B1 through B10)
Ten interpretations of the Kana letters 'mo,' 'ri,' 'sa,' and 'wa' in black and white. I was essentially tired of seeing all kind of typographic imagery so in 1996 I declared an end to it all
by doing it all.

   

• Shape of Space Series (C1 through C7)
The implicit shape of a surrounding space as a reading of densities.

   

• Dot Rectangles Series (D1 through D4)
Using 10 variations of graduated dots, I thought of a variety of regimented and simple arrangements of these elements. Background black is printed in double-hit black.

   

• Four Color Series (E1 through E3—E1 N/A)
Printing experiment using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black to create extremely precise illustrations.

   

• Time Text Series (D1 through D4—D4 N/A)
Using extremely tiny type (0.5pt to 2pt) to create dense images that represent temporal phenomena. In one of them is the entire sequence of days in 2000 years, another the incremental steps towards a marathon, and in another the seconds in a day.

   

• Color Kokeshi (E1 through E3—all N/A)
Every DIC Color Chip (the Japanese equivalent of Pantone chips) rendered as a little, happy Japanese doll. The entire image exists as 3 separate landscape images.

   

• .Too Markers (F1 through F2—F2 N/A)
The Rolls-Royce of xylene-based markers (exquisite colors!) is the .Too Copic Marker. I created a variety of images using the color marker cap (which has a unique aesthetic), such as the Mona Lisa for the sake of being cliché.

   

• Flags (G1 through G2—G2 N/A)
Flags of the nations of the world rendered in an image of totality (minus 26.5 degrees of void). I was surprised how many nations exist and disappear in the world's history.

   

• Grapac (H1 through H4)
The series of prints that I created were all printed courtesy of Grapac Corporation's Mr. Watanabe. I created a variety of initial test images using Grapac's composition press (in the day, large format color printing wasn't possible). Since it was a real printing press, I could use silver and fluorescent inks.

   

• Mr. B (J1 through J2)
Created for a paper launch in Japan, but became an obsession with the instability of a little mathematical function I wrote.

   

• Shape of Color (K1 through K4—K1 N/A)
Nothing out of the ordinary, but an emphasis on color and printing accuracy was the goal. Double-hit colors make these images striking in real life.

   

• Seibu (L1 through L3—L2 N/A)
Created for Seibu Department Store in Tokyo as summer imagery.

   

• Sony (M1—M1 N/A)
Created for a project in collaboration with Sony Tokyo Design Center in 1996 presented at Siggraph that year. Every Sony product printed in a geometrically repeating pattern .

   

• Shiseido Anniversary (N1—N1 N/A)
Commemorating 30 years of commercial films for Shiseido, I created an image that embodied the combined footage in an abstract collage that was inspired by a sketch I saw on the subway by Tadao Ando.

   

 

   
 

Copyright 2005, John Maeda.