Phosphorescent City
KAZUKI MOTANI
Speculative Urban Designer ｜Japan
OTHER PERSPECTIVE
DETAILS OF THE WORK
AWARDS 2021 FINALISTS
In the year 2045, it will be common for buildings in urban areas to be equipped with solar panels due to the environmental responsibility of massive power consumption. In this context, a technology that delays the electronic transition to the ground state of photoluminescence for an arbitrary time has been developed. An experimental phosphorescent coating for building facades using this technology, "Phosphorescent Surface," is expected to absorb sunlight during the day and use it as a light source at night.
In such a future city, conventional streetlights and solar panels that convert electricity into light will be useless. The streetlights and solar panels in the cities where the "Phosphorescent Surface" will spread will be a very unique thomasson for people.
In this work, you will be immersed in "Phosphorescent City," a city of the future where this technology has been experimentally introduced. Here, we can experience a possible future city where streetlights and solar panels become thomassons and facades become light sources.
VR HMD is required for the ultra experience of the work. Learn how to experience it here.
CREATOR PROFILE
KAZUKI MOTANI
Speculative Urban Designer ｜Japan
Born in Aichi in 1995. Graduated from Educational Program for Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering Science, Yokohama National University. Graduated from The Emerging Design and Informatics Course, The Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo. When he was a college student, he studied signal processing and created wedding movies and music video as photographer, video editor and director. After becoming a graduate student, he studied indoor positioning and activity recognition using smartphone and created installation and plans for urban design. Awarded 1st prize in WIKITOPIA INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION, Bronze prize in IEEE GCCE2019 Excellent Paper Award, Finalist in SONY U24 CO-CHALLENGE 2020. Exhibited in iiiEx, SICF20. He works as a Speculative Urban Designer to pursue the possibilities of technologies and arts that connect cities and humans. He also works in urban development company in Tokyo.
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A place in the virtual that lead us back to make changes in our real world is a powerful statement in design. Whilst it is evident the virtual world will wrap about us more and more... we feel in this 'city' a potential for our real world that would offer a beauty and a respect to our planet. The cinematic sound, use of light changing and the hovering on the edge of the real gave us a relatable magic that really gave me an emotional sense of change. Can the role of VR change our cities, discarding what is 'useless' and replacing that with an effervescent colouration that equally takes us into a new art of the real. The Phosphorescent City is a place I would choose to live in.
Jury
Zowie Broach
Head of Programme for FASHION Royal College of Art
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First, the story's setting of the energy revolution in the near future is excellent. The idea that luminescent paint for building facades can absorb sunlight and function as a light source at night is brilliant. It is not a Blade Runner-style dystopia, but a vivid luminescent light source that illuminates the orderly suburban landscape and 20th century-designed streetlights that fly in the air. Such vivid projections of dead-tech future create a POP avant-garde image of the near future that hasn't really been done in science fiction. It is not a decadent future, and yet it is the year 2045, when solar panels have become useless. The artist explains this by using Genpei Akasegawa's term "Thomason". What awesome VR!
Jury President
Naohiro Ukawa
Contemporary Artist / DOMMUNE
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This prize is the only one that allowed independent judgment, and I selected "Phosphorescent City" without any hesitation, as it won both the SILVER and SUPER DOMMUNE PRIZE. As mentioned above, the author Kazuki Motani depicted this dead-tech future in the near future by quoting Genpei Akasegawa's "Tomasson". This concept refers to the "nonsensical aesthetics" of buildings that have become "useless objects" while being integrated with real estate, and is similar to Susan Sontag's "Camp" and Andre Breton's "Surrealism. "Camp" by Susan Sontag and "Surrealism" by André Breton, it feels like a loving mockery of out-of-the-ordinary images and excessive reality. This work rediscovers the virtual urban space through a humorous lens, and makes it illusory from the perspective of "studying street observation!"
NAOHIRO UKAWA
Contemporary artist (DOMMUNE)
FEATURING WORKS
Fashion, music, film, graphic, illustration, etc.
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