Past Exhibition

About LINK OF LIFE

LINK OF LIFE’s first exhibition in 2015, titled “Touch. Feel. Experience in the Big Beauty Lab,” explored the concept of “touch” as a very ordinary everyday action that is surprisingly difficult to express. In 2016, a second iteration, titled “Aging? Future!”, focused on the concept of “successful aging” (“accumulating the years beautifully,” a vision first proposed by Shiseido in 1989) and considered what it will mean to live beautifully in the future in light of the reality of Japan’s aging society.

This year the exhibition takes up the subject of “new beauty,” presenting works created by Shiseido researchers and employees teaming up with outside artists, companies and organizations to explore new inspirations and advanced technologies. Reinterpreting last year’s “successful aging” theme, they have proposed the new concept “asobi-neering” (“play-gineering” in English), which is all about “stimulating the right side of the brain to sharpen and clarify the sensibilities toward accumulating beauty that can fulfill the playful spirit.” This idea has led to the creation of these art works in which sensory (right-brain) stimulation brings out the beauty within people. The aim is to have an exhibition that not only pleases the right side of the brain, but also offers the possibility of discovering clues as to how to build a richer future.

■Link of Life 2017—“Right Brain, About-Face!” Exhibition　 Exhibition Details

General Descriptions of Works on Display

• Creators
• Creative Concept

• Hiroko Ozeki (Brand SHISEIDO PR)
  Ai Hasegawa (artist)
  Kaori Inaba (Shiseido researcher)
  Parima Tayebi (Shiseido product development director)
• Do we not so often limit ourselves to fit some “ideal Japanese woman” image that would have us be only gentle, modest, mild, and weak? Surely we have within us feelings and talents that have yet to be awakened, and the potential to meet new parts of ourselves. This work incorporates images and fragrances that seek to release the “wild” so long confined and sleeping within that “ideal Japanese woman,” offering a chance to experience a temporary transformation from a “Japanese woman” to a “shark,” and to feel a “flowering,” that is to say a “blossoming of inherent talent.”

• Yasuo Kato (Shiseido researcher)
  Haruka Furuya (director/ creative director)
• The word “teate” means “providing care,” particularly in the sense of “a laying on of hands.” It references an age-old practice of using the hands (or palms) to touch parts of the body that are in some poor condition as a means of ameliorating uncomfortable symptoms. How do our bodies change in response to “touching”? We turned our eyes on the potential to go through skin and flesh to arrive at a “dialogue of the physical body,” merging art with future communication technologies that use the body as a transmission path, resulting in the presentation of a “Touch Theatre” that proposes a new kind of communication.

• Miho Miyanaga (Shiseido researcher)
  Yoko Shimizu (artist and researcher)
  Yuta Manaka (Shiseido researcher)
• This installation work in a potentially experiential form attempts to express, through the mixing of chemical components, the sparkle, diversity and contradictions inherent in women today. Using the flavor and fragrance technologies usually applied to Shiseido’s food and perfume development, this work attempts to express the diversity of women through various formulations of ingredients.

Profiles of the Main Contributors

<OUTSIDE CONTRIBUTORS>

Ai Hasegawa

Artist/designer. Born in Shizuoka prefecture, Ai Hasegawa graduated from Gifu prefecture’s International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, then in 2012 earned an MA degree from the Royal College of Art in England. From 2014, she was assistant researcher at MIT’s Media Lab, earning an MS degree in 2016. From 2017, she became a specially appointed researcher at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. Her work explores new relationships between human beings and technology using approaches and techniques like bio-art, speculative design, and design fiction. She exhibits both in Japan and abroad, with venues including the Mori Art Museum, the Ars Electronica Center, and others. Her “(Im)possible Baby, Case 01: Asako & Moriga” won the Excellence Award in the Art Division of the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival.

Haruka Furuya

Director and creative director Haruka Furuya was born in Tokyo and spent her high school years in Germany. She later graduated from the drama department of the University of Bristol in England. After directing dramas mainly in the theaters in Germany and England, she moved into the advertising industry. With the commercial production company Taiyo Kikaku she worked not only in film, but also on complex performances incorporating space and technology. By July 2014 she had struck out on her own, and her freelance efforts have included singer Namie Amuro’s “Birthday” music video, art direction for NHK’s The Lady Warlord television drama series, and art direction of visuals and displays for department stores like Parco, Lumine, and Mitsukoshi-Isetan. She has won awards from MTV VMAJ and One Show Interactive, among others.

Yoko Shimizu

Artist and researcher Yoko Shimizu was born in Kyoto and graduated from Kobe University’s biochemistry department. As a child, she had spent a number of years in the United States and would eventually find herself influenced by theNew York art scene. In her “+1e” biotechnology lab she researches design that incorporates biotechnology and other advanced sciences, globally deploying works that merge science and art. She has been a personality on international broadcasting stations, active in media presentations like TED and FITC, and a participant in the Ars Electronica Festival in 2016. Awards include the Newcomer Award for the Aichi Prefectural Arts and Culture awards.

<SHISEIDO STAFF>

Hiroko Ozeki
(Shiseido Global Prestige Brands Division, SHISEIDO Brand Unit)

Born in Osaka, Hiroko Ozeki went to the United States and became involved in the New York art business. In 2000, she coordinated a Shiseido corporate exhibit at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, and it was in that connection that she would later join Shiseido in 2005. She currently oversees promotions in the U.S. market, and even while having moved internally among Shiseido’s various departments, her work has consistently involved the communication of Shiseido’s corporate values. She is currently in the SHISEIDO Brand Unit, working on international promotions and other projects.