www.designboom.com: chinese artist jody xiong has created a huge poster of 12 by 23 meters — the girl in the poster has a three-dimensional sculpted arm that forms a large palm-shaped stage. musicians are invited to play music on that stage performing ‘handheld concerts’. the installation is an ad campaign promoting ‘rokid me’, a high-quality portable smart speaker that can be controlled from the palm of the hand.
3 comments:
The title of this article itself is a real surprise. It's not everyday that some sort of advertisement, or artwork really surprises you, but this piece is very surprising. Jody Xiong has created this very surreal concert viewing experience and I've never seen anything like it before. It's a little surprising that this endeavor is coming from a company, but I think nowadays companies are feeling obligated to really go above and beyond when it comes to promotional material; with the case of the rokid speaker, they definitely catch your attention, and their intention is clearly communicated. However, not even looking at it from the intended advertisement perspective, it's quite fascinating to see just a tiny musical artist can hold their own against this giant hand. The hand, and the photo behind it (helping to create the illusion) are very simple, it's only their size that is distracting. When I say distracting, I don't mean it in a bad way, it's just something that you have to get used to before you can actually appreciate seeing the tiny artist in the palm of the hand. I think this a very witty advertisement, and I'm sad that I don't have the opportunity to see it in person.
When I first read the headline of the article that the designer built a giant hand sculpture as a stage, I’d pictured it as being much more sculptural or abstract. I had no idea that it was going to look so realistic. It’s a pretty extravagant and imaginative way of advertising a portable handheld speaker, though it’s definitely a change from your typical edited/computer generated advertisements. Jody Xiong really created a showing experience that’s pretty different from anything else. Looking up to see a musician, singer, etc. in the palm of a gigantic hand gives you a much different feel than if you were viewing them on a typical stage. The unique layout makes it much more captivating. It reminds me a little of the Bregenz stage that was a huge book for the actors to walk on, and a gigantic skeleton standing over them holding the book open.
It makes me sad sometimes that such cool and interesting artistic projects like this are just a company’s advertisement. I see such a large potential for a specialized shaped stage like this using media on that back wall to vary the background to the arm that extends from it. There could be multiple hands so an ensemble of musicians could be “on stage”. There could be automation involved that moves the “stages to different layers depending on the musical number being performed. It makes me disheartened that the motivation for this project is just to advertise and sell a handheld speaker. Alas this is the nature of our capitalistic society.
The other large reaction I had from seeing this article at first was worry about how the musicians entered and exited. I am very glad that the artists stay tethering on a line while they perform.I’m honestly still interested in how they got that person’s cello up to the hand.
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