One unexpected thing during my stay in Japan was becoming a performer. Friend and seminar-peer Hiramoto Mizuki needed people to carry out her Sushi performance, which involves humans taking on the appearance of the popular traditional Japanese dish in the streets of the crowded night-life district Roppongi, as part of the Roppongi Art Night festival. So I became the rice to her tuna. I was actually part of the (huge) camera crew half of the time as well. I don’t normally enjoy performing in public, but the experience was actually pretty fun. She made a video out of the copious material her little army of camerapeople got for her, and made it her graduation project. The video’s spoken in Japanese, but if interested just skip to the performances.

Another performing experience was for a series of videos promoting a student art competition called the “21th [sic] Campus Genius Award.” They were going for a Hollywood aesthetic, and thus needed ‘foreigners.’ I’m awful in it, but here you can watch the whole slick sci-fi movie-inspired little series. The company in charge of the web and promotion was TNYU, which is run by former students of the program I studied, so that’s how I ended up there. I actually appeared in a different video ad, did some translation work, and did (terrible) voice work for them after that.

I was also asked by another friend from my seminar to develop her website in three short days, since she apparently needed it to apply for an art residence (she happily succeeded.) I just made a static site, since there was not enough time, and she made the design. Other than that, I made a little web flyer for a friend’s party (she’s a dancer and often participates in such things,) which marks one of the few chances I’ve gotten to do actual, standard graphic design these days.