Technology Is Just Technology

Tokyo Genso is an artist that recreates scenes by painting over scenery from photographs. What I find interesting is that he recreates the scene so that it looks like ~50 years have passed.

||Top: Tokyo Genso's version of Shibuya|| Bottom: photo of Shibuya||

As you can see Tokyo Genso takes an image of the city Shibuya and paints a future version of it. Shibuya is a city in Tokyo, Japan: which is popular for it's technology, fashion and youth. Shibuya is know to be filled with young people. Shibuya is typically a lively city from day to night.

I find it interesting how Tokyo Genso uses the landmark (Shibuya 109 shopping center) to get the audience to recognize where it is but changes it in a way where it isn't Shibuya anymore. What he displays is quite the opposite of today's Shibuya. Tokyo Genso displays Shibuya as an empty district where no human life is seen and building seem to be broken and taken over by nature. This contrast is quite interesting because it depicts how humans work hard to create new technology but in the end it is nothing but scrap in the future. Society is what gives technology importance, otherwise nature will take it's dominance as seen in Tokyo Genso's work.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Recently as I was searching for a new game to play, I stumbled upon an interesting game called Ghost trick.




Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a game were you play a character who dies and loses all their memories. The object of the game is to discover who you are by possessing certain objects (this is your ghost trick) and saving others lives (but turning back time) that might hint on who you are.






What I find interesting is that not only is the artwork and animation amazing but the concept of the game is quite original in my perspective.


As seen above, the character designs take on a Japanese style: where the characters have big eyes with a combination of a Western style: where simple shapes are applied (i.e: the hair and the nose).

Many people in society make mistakes, some mistakes may even cause a life to be lost. Typically people wonder what happens to them after death, due to stories and the media the common ideas that are heard are rebirth, heaven, hell or a ghost. Shu Takumi, the Creator of this game takes on the concept of becoming a ghost after death and expands on the idea by adding a concept of correcting the mistakes that had cause others death.

What I find ironic about this idea is that you turn back time to relive the past and fix mistakes to save a life. Typically in a video game when your character dies the story you restart at the last point you saved at, but, in this case the game forces people to die so that you can go back 4 minutes before the death to try to save the person which is almost the same idea.