On 2009.10.23-24 @ ift presented a workshop with two artist; Jeann Landry-Belleu and Mamoru Okuno.
Jeanne works on the issues related to Web culture and especially the icons in relation to the 15th Century italian writer Cesare Ripa(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Ripa). She introduced her ideas about the Web and her current research on icons. If the images surrounding our society can be seen as the reflections of what human reality today, then analyzing images can be a search for Humanity. Jeanne tried to collect icons on Web to understand the human values among the Web culture. Then she started creating new icons to project her ideals on Web, where new form of communication are continuously updated. At the end of the workshop, all of the participants made their own icons representing various human values, and they will be up on Web for people to download freely. The artist's intention is to see if they would effect the future of our world.
Sound artist Mamoru introduced one of his “etude for everyday objects and practices” His “etude” is an attempt of create art work by a simple idea; recode, decode, remix with everyday elements which often are considered economically worthless. The “etude no.12 variation for eating Nori paste together” involves people eating Nori paste on a Japanese cracker with other seasoning as snack. During the workshop, Mamoru made these snacks for participants to enjoy eating. At the end, he showed the process of empty glass bottle of Nori paste becoming “etude no.12”, a sound object. People passed the object that was put on a small light box one by one to listen to the sound. The sharing of the process transcend the object from to-be-a-garbage into a work of art.
*all infomation written above is acording to the infomation provided at the workshops.