In 1991 Nike produced the Air Max 180 sports-shoe, which became highly popular for its cutting-edge technology and artistic roots. For the first time, Nike collaborated with artists from the very beginning to tell the story of innovation born from creativity.
For their re-launch in 2006, Nike commissioned Pictoplasma to find a designer to revive the original spirit in a new, iconic character, giving tribute to air and zero gravity and at the same time transmitting an urban quality. Pictoplasma developed this idea a bit further to not only design a character, but to produce it as a costume that would incorporate the figure into our world.
The German artist Wayne Horse, known for his innovative graffiti, animation and art projects, designed a new character and took over the production of the full-body costume.
Max had his first appearance at the 2nd Pictoplasma Conference where he mingled with an international audience, was host of his own gallery exhibition, initiated urban interventions and had a big appearance at the main venue, animating attendees to sing at the closing karaoke party.
Pictoplasma further incorporated the character in its PR communication, which led to a wide visual circulation.
Area Code, the most innovative agency for urban games based in New York, commissioned Pictoplasma to produce a family of more than 150 individual character designs, allowing visitors of the American pavilion at the Expo Shanghai 2010 to engage in a unique interactive adventure. The challenge was to enhance the exposure of Johnson & Johnson with an installation that not only engages the viewer into a playful experience, but also communicates notions of caring and connecting. Visitors were encouraged to give birth to their very own, individual character on a huge presentation screen by texting personal messages via their mobile phones.
The incoming messages acted as the DNA to create unique critters that would accompany the visitors during their long stroll through the exhibition, and could be given further instructions to playfully interact with other characters on their way. Each interaction was accompanied by a little, rewarding animation and generated points that were ultimately transferred to real currency and donated by Johnson & Johnson for Chinese charity purposes.
The individual characters live on and can be revisited while they continuously populate an ever-growing interactive website, where they can be re-transferred to the mobile phones of their creators.
In 2009 the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin) invited Pictoplasma to curate the world’s first large-scale exhibition on contemporary character design and art. “Prepare for Pictopia” playfully explored the phenomenon and offered new and surprising insight into a growing scene of graphic designers and artists that work with a shared set of icons, opening up new contexts and correlations. The exhibition examined the contemporary vague of reduced figuration as a strategy for producing a vitalism outside established narratives. These so-called characters are reduced to the anthropomorphic function of eye contact which seems to look out from flat pictorial space at the viewer.
Besides a large number of site specific work created especially for the occasion by Akinori Oishi, Doma Collective, Doudouboy, Doma, Juan Pablo Cambariere, Rinzen, Borris Hoppek, Waynehorse, FriendsWithYou and Shoboshobo, the group show presented original artwork by: Mark Ryden, AJ Fosik, Ben Frost, Daniel & Geo Fuchs, Dylan Martorell, Edwina Ashton, Faiyaz Jafri, Fons Schiedon, Gary Baseman, Golan Levin, Hideaki Kawashima, Ian Stevenson, James Marshall, Jeremy Dower, Motomichi Nakamura, Nagi Noda, Olaf Breuning, Sam Gibbons, Tim Biskup and many more…
French designer Florent Feys aka Doudouboy has worked extensively for the luxury industry – his luscious, oneiric and crystalline illustration style is the perfect match to brand high-class products such as haute couture or radiant perfumes.
In 2009, Pictoplasma commissioned Doudouboy to collaborate on a large-scale, walkable installation, playing on the topic of perfect and sterile consumer aesthetics incorporating minimal, yet engaging characters. The aim was to create a maximal notion of desire while keeping the viewer at unreachable distance.
The installation “Brilhante” employs the optical illusion of an infinity room by arranging mirrors to seal and extend a closed space. This endless void is the perfect stage for an over-sized, gently revolving koala bear statue covered in exclusive fur.
A soundtrack sets an uncanny mood, as the visitor is tempted to touch, hug and cuddle the precious creature, only to see his own image endlessly reflected in the life-less eyes and infinite space of the installation.
In the months and weeks prior to the exhibition “Prepare for Pictopia” (2009), a selected group of international artists were commissioned by Pictoplasma and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt to create new site-specific artwork. These works played on the main topics of the exhibition: the remix of a common visual vocabulary, the animistic physical presence of character design and the approach to interact with characters in ritualistic play. One of the most ambitious tasks was to transform the venue’s vast, empty lobby, so Pictoplasma invited Miami based artist duo FriendsWithYou to join in and create an unforgettable experience.
The areal with over 800 square meters was re-designed as a full-grown interactive installation referencing a suburban landscape, including private hide-aways, cheerful picket fences and FriendsWithYou’s legendary bouncing castle “Fun House”.
Not only was the installation the first to greet visitors of the exhibition, thus having to introduce and transport the exhibition’s core topics. Most importantly it had to be carefully conceived and produced in such a way to stand up to the enormous – and sometimes uncontrollable – willingness, of the more than 30.000 visitors to engage in wild, limitless and untamed play.
As the central installation for the exhibition “Prepare for Pictopia” at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2009), Pictoplasma produced a series of five unique, interactive bumper cars referencing iconic characters by international artists Motomichi Nakamura (US/JP), Boris Hoppek (DE), Nathan Jurevicius (AUS), Tado (UK) and Doma (ARG).
Every hour lights gradually faded as the sun set in the exhibition hall, while the central marked place arena came to life in an illuminated fire-work of sounds, lights and colours. The dodgem awoke and invited visitors to hop in the character cars for a truly psychedelic ritual.
Accompanied by the special, 6 channel soundtrack composed by Künstler Treu, a synchronised light-show in blue, red and white revealed the previously hidden multilayered inhabitants of the graphical arena designed by Steve Alexander from the art-collective Rinzen.
The Bumper cars have since made a reappearance at the Internationaal Beeldfestival in Rotterdam, where visitors were able to literally bump away each others visual fatigue.
In 2008 the TodaysArt Festival, Den Haag, invited Pictoplasma to come up with an open, collective urban game. We accepted the kind invitation and set up a real-life, Mario-Kart-like race, straight through the passage in front of the Ministry of Environment (tellingly named VROM).
Two huge trucks brought in hay to mark the track and the “Character Collision Army” recruitment office was erected, where festival visitors were drafted, drilled and prepared for a truly character-driven combat.
The result was a gasoline infused thrill with roaring go-karts, a high speed radio edit by Jason Forrest blasting from the ministry’s propaganda speakers, drill-instructor Jared Gradinger shouting out commands and the opportunity for clue-less passer-byes to support their favorite character clan, designed by Motomichi Nakamura, Fons Schiedon and Rinzen.
In retrospect we are all puzzled that no one was seriously hurt…
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In a unique cooperation of the creative avantgarde from character and costume design, in 2006 Pictoplasma transformed the most captivating, screwball and outstanding characters of our time into fantastic costumes. Padded, hydraulic or helium-filled, the creatures have literally come to life at last. Based on the designs of illustrators from Buenos Aires, Miami, Barcelona, Toronto, Osaka or Paris, the new inhabitants of the virtual PictoOrphanage allowed real-life donors to sponsor them – and thereby enable the production and birth of corporeal characters from the realm of the digital image.
Dancers and performers under the direction of choreograph Jared Gradinger (Constanza Macras / Dorky Park, Berlin) explored these new life forms and their individual character. Freed from the binds of storytelling and advertising, the characters developed their individual will, which they have proudly demonstrated in countless guerrilla style interventions during their ongoing tour. Meanwhile, the orphans have made memorable appearances in all corners of the globe, from France, Germany, New York, The Netherlands, Sweden, all the way to China, turning the urban streets into a main stage for their adventures.
In 2005, MTV UK was looking for an infinite family of diverse, high quality characters to populate their brand new multi-media platform MY MTV. A perfect opportunity for Pictoplasma to pull all strings and secure that the resulting designs truly stand up to the high standard desired. The challenge was to produce a large quantity of unique, individual characters to ensure that the various target groups can each invest, instantly recognise and relate to their own avatar, while keeping the overall appeal of the design harmonious and coherent.
The resulting vast quantity of avatars, lovingly created especially for the project by more than 20 select international artists, designers and illustrators, were further customisable by the user to ultimately interact throughout such diverse media as mobile phone devices, the MTV website and TV broadcast.
No other living creature features as heavily in contemporary character design and art as the humble hare. Bunnies are definitely the most depicted creatures of all times, a fact that was also reflected by the endless stream of rabbits daily submitted to Pictoplasma’s archives by international artists. But what exactly makes bunnies so irresistible?
There’s no such thing as too much bunnies! And just to prove it, in 2006 Pictoplasma intentionally asked internationally established and upcoming character designers, illustrators and artists around the globe to send in their versions of rabbits, bunnies, hares and everything in between.
The result is a full-scale bunny overdose, with far more than 1.500 individual rabbits from 500+ international contributers. By condensing the endless variations of the rabbit motif into one ultimate system – a perfect bunny mandala – the true nature of the beast emerges: the eternal essence of rabbit.
“The Bunny Mandala Shrine” was installed at the sous-station of Projet Diligence in Nice (France), during the onedotzero Festival in London (UK), at Bios Athens (Greece) and the South Eastern Centre for Contemporary Arts (SECCA) in North Carolina (USA).
Pictoplasma’s “Colour Me!” makes an all-time dream come true: A selected group of approximately three international character designers and artists meet for the first time and create a unique colouring and activity room: while locked in the venue for several days, thousands of untouched black and white illustrations, scribbles and characters begin to cover a white room from floor to ceiling, wall to wall.
Upon completion, visitors are invited to enter the space and lovingly colour in the characters in special Cyan, Magenta and Yellow pens, turning the space into an ever evolving colouring and activity room in true CMYK.
Starting in 2005, until today numerous walls of established project spaces, upcoming galleries and high-art museums from Europe to Asia have been covered with thousands of black outline illustrations, only to find themselves coloured in to the point of total occlusion by a huge stampede of happy visitors.
Amongst others, “Colour Me!” has been set up in Düsseldorf, Halle, Hong Kong and Peterborough. Participating artists include Jon Burgerman, Sune Ehlers, Boris Hoppek, Shoboshobo, Neasden Control Centre, Ian Stevenson and Dennis Tyfus.
In 2005, Pictoplasma was commissioned to brand the re-launch party of the 1916 Lucky Strike packaging in Olso. The idea of the party was to recreate a classical “Green Ball” of the early 20th century, albeit with a modern, contemporary character twist. The “1916 Green Ball” theme referred to the original Lucky Strike packaging in 1916, when a Green Ball held in New York was set up and hence raised sales.
The concept incorporates the idea of blending the old and the new: an eclectic mix of the 1916 time, the Green Ball theme and a keen expression of contemporary graphic illustrations, street art, character design, club culture references and contexts, with a strong focus on adult Manga type cartoon and – obviously – the colour green. The resulting life sized stand-up characters and a vast amount of over-sized props created by Pictoplasma in close cooperation with artist dub99 where set up at a ballroom in Oslo, while the aesthetic was integrated across all elements of the event starting with the invitations through to the gifts.
The installation “Characters at War” (2004) enables visitors to meet the elite of international character design literally eye-to-eye. From Super Mario to Emily the Strange: Hundreds of all time favourites and shiny newcomers from the flat-faced world of character design, comics, graffiti and merchandising are pushing through to the third dimension!
The loveliest, cutest, and strangest characters stand tall as life-size cardboard stand-up soldiers arranged in a gigantic battlefield installation. Behind the foot soldiers of this enormous anthropomorphic army are none other than the heroes of the international design scene.
Characters at War has toured excessively around the globe, and has been installed in the Zentralbüro, Berlin and the Forum-NRW, Düsseldorf (GER), at the Space4 Gallery in Peterborough (UK), at the Secca in Winston-Salem (USA) and the California State Univeristy Long Beach Art Museum in Los Angeles (USA).
Artists participating in the installation include Snowcat, Fawn Gehweiler, Buero Destruct, Furi Furi, Francois Chalet, ESM artificial, ACNE, James Marschall aka Dalek, Phunk Studio, ShagArt, Mari-chan, Unit9, Jim Avignon, Genevieve Gaukler, Boris Hoppek, FriendsWithYou, Tim Biskup, Flying Fortress, Doma Collective, Love Ablan, and many, many more…
The Character Walk is an open tour through numerous galleries, project spaces and other locations made temporarily available to host exhibitions, installations and performances of outstanding international character art. In a careful selection, Pictoplasma invites innovative artists and designers working with a reduced visual vocabulary of anthropomorphic shapes to present their work as part of the event. We fulfil all steps in the conception and planning of the exhibitions in close collaboration with the artists and spaces, all centrally located in Berlin Mittte.
The Character Walk is promoted extensively in a focused media campaign and through the production of a special map locating all exhibitions and explaining the concept of the individual shows.
The Character Walk has been held three times in 2004, 2006 and 2009 as the official opening event to the bi-annual Pictoplasma Conference. All exhibitions are open to the general public, entrance free of charge.
