The creative conference HIGH5 3 took place in Yokohamao last month (Jan 23). Organized by the creative portal site HITSPAPER, HIGH5 was held for the third time and included six presentations with the central theme being “Galapagos“, which was a metaphorical expression for the isolated cellphone market in Japan. And industries requiring universal standards worldwide because of globalisation and development of technologies.

The six groups of leading creators got together to present their own creative philosophy, the process and result of their different artworks. Speakers were SHIMURABROS, Lieko Shiga, Klein Dytham architecture, LAB Rockwell group, Toru Nagahama and Naoki Ito (W+K tokyo).

The first presentation was started by the film artist SHIMURABROS, who was formed by Yuka Shimura and Kentaro Shimura who are also brother and sister. After participated in the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, SHIMURABROS have gained attention as film makers upcoming new installation and experimental film after enjoying their presentation about the three dimensionalized “X-RAY Train”.

After the presentation by a photographer Lieko Shiga, who did speach on her latest photo book, an architectural unit Klein Dytham architecture followed after. Formed by UK-born Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, Klein Dytham architecture works actively for the various fields of not only architecture and interior designs, but also installations and events. In addtion to the presentation of their architectural work, Astrid Klein gave a presentation about one of their outstanding worldwide events: Pecha Kucha Night, which is held in over 270 cities worldwide. She mentioned that the event wouldn’t be realised without their event place Super Deluxe. A Pecha Kucha Night took place even in Bogota where was known as one of the violent cities with drugs, and this will introduce there are many interesting people in such a violent city. Celebrated for the 20th year of living in Japan this year, Klein Dytham architecture will inspires us as an diverse unit beyond a group for just architecture.

The interactive team Lab Rockwellgroup appeared as the 4th speaker. As a collective of various fields of designers of product, interactive, architecture, and graphic, they have considerations how they make interactive spaces and how they fit in the context. They mentioned that “what they actually want to do is to remove boundaries such as digital and internet.”

Next was Toru Nagahama, who is a photographer as well as currently works at the london-based creative studio Hi-ReS!. He makes various works based on photography that has been seen since he was selected for the 29th Hitotsubo-Ten. Even though his work looks pop and humorous, he used to take photos without any tweaks before, but people around him inspired him to settle in his current work style.

After the presentation by a photographer Toru Nagahama, who talked about a brief history of who has influenced and how it affected to his his current work style, the last presentation was given by the creative director Naoki Ito, who was recently appointed as the representative of Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo. Started with negative words for advertisement, he makes advertising works on the premise of such negative ideas. He gave an useful presentation through the speech on the value of advertising and its meaning, introducing some of the W+K Tokyo’s ad work such as TV spot for Coca Cola and Honda.

Ahead of the official release, Lieko Shiga’s The Entrance of Canary was on sale with other books including the artist book “:balloon” collaborated with Shun Kawakami of artless and Takashi Kawada of kotenhits. Definitely different from other conference, HIGH5 3 created opportunities for 6 significant speakers to make inspirational presentations.

HIGH5 3 http://www.high5.jp

Text: Kayo Tamura
Translation: Mariko Takei