Onomatopoeic Sculptures

2007-11-19T00:31:00.000-08:00

Artist Atsushi Fukunaga gives shape to Japanese giongo (onomatopoeia) in playful sculptures that have the zing of manga sound-effect graphics gone 3D.
He Say:
"I am interested in how to give form to something that is formless. Formless things have many qualities, among them sound, movement, atmosphere, taste, light and shadow, and I am particularly interested in sound, There are many ways to interpret sound, My first step being to translate the sound an onomatopoeic word. My own country of Japan has many onomatopoeic words. Furthermore, the Japanese katakana alphabet is used to communicate foreign words by breaking them down into their constituent syllables. These etranslatedf foreign words are unique to the Japanese language. I believe there is a universal communicative quality to sound as opposed to language. In Japanese, onomatopoeic words are often used to describe events which have no sound, thereby creating an imaginative link between language and reality. I am interested in investigating ways of communicating to as many people as possible through sound, In the visual language this world be akin to road signs, traffic signals, toilet signs, and hazard patterns. I am also interested in describing sound through visual language. For example, in Japanese manga comics a loud sound is often signified by larger, bolder letters. I am currently exploring this idea further."