Surprisingly different. In America and Japan,
they are seen as entertainment. For some reason,
in Korea, Canada, and Australia, they are thought
of a science, and in Europe, they have been hailed
as “as a new form of Dadaism,”
and “contemporary art.”
เคย post เรื่องนี้เมื่อสมัยทำ blog ใหม่ๆ -_-”
เหตุการณ์ก็ล่วงเลยมาจน blog(เก่า) หายไปแล้ว
และเรื่องนี้ก็อยู่ในส่วนที่กู้ไม่ได้อีก -_-”
ก่อนหน้านานนู้น กรุงเทพธุรกิจ:จุดประกายเคยเอาเรื่องนี้มาลง
เห็นในเว็บนี้กลับมาพูดถึงอีก เลยเอามาลงอีกสักทีจะเป็นไร (ไปเนอะ!)
กฎสำหรับ Chindogu !!
- A chindogu must not actually be used
- It must have some function.
- It must have an anarchic element.
- It must be a tool for everyday life.
- It must not actually be put on the market.
- It must not be only for the purpose of humor.
- It must not be for black humor.
- “Dirty” jokes are forbidden.
- It must not be for profit.
- It must be usable internationally
PingMag – Chindogu: Form or Function?
Headwear equipped with a loaded toilet paper dispenser?! What in the world for? Who came up with this and why? More importantly, who in their right mind would walk around with a bog roll on their head? Welcome to the world of chindogu. The Japanese phrase literally translates as “unusual tools,” but what is it all about? Today PingMag catches up with chindogu inventor Kenji Kawakami of the Chindogu Society of Japan to learn all you will ever need to know about chindogu.
Written by Ryoko
Translated by Kevin Mcgue
To jump right to the heart of the matter, what are chindogu?
To put it briefly, they are tools that wind up being more inconvenient than convenient. (Laughs) I’ll show you an example. This is the “Electric Fork.” Go ahead and give the button a push.
The “Electric Fork” – at its inventor’s urging, we pushed the button, and…
In our world, all technology is progressing, right? So I thought why not take a simple fork and make it electric. Using this fork, with a single flick of the switch you can effortlessly wind up spaghetti. The only drawback is that the spaghetti sauce goes flying everywhere. So the end result is that it really is better not to use it. And that is what “chindogu” means. It isn’t something that anyone would actually use, but it has to be a tool that a person could use.
So how did you get started making chindogu?
Years ago, I was working as a freelance editor, writing for magazines and working on some scripts for the animated series Calimero. I started my own production company, and one of my first projects, for a certain magazine, was coming up with the concept of chindogu. The response was greater than I could have ever imagined, and chindogu really took on a life of their own.
Kawakami’s office, filled with various inventions.
A young inventor in the making. Kawakami with a paraglider he made of tent material
Didn’t you study aerospace engineering?
I have liked airplanes since I was a child, and when I was in high school I made a kind of paraglider. I loved planes and thought that I would like to do some kind of work relating to them. However, I entered college in 1967, which was the beginning of the whole student movements, and that ideology had a huge influence on me. Not long after I got into school, I dropped out to join the movement. I had always been interested in literature, and so I started to write for magazines as a way of supporting myself.
Mechanical from a young age. Kawakami on a go-cart.
By the way, do you make the chindogu yourself?
I started making chindogu 17 years ago, and there must be around 700 of them by now. I have made every one of them by myself. I have always been good at making models, so making the chindogu has been easy.
A good idea? Toilet roll hat for those with serious sniffles.
I heard that you also accept ideas from amateur inventors…
Yes, but I don’t often get ideas that are fully formed. I take some of the ideas that are sent in and try to make them more interesting. For example, the toilet paper headgear came from an idea to put a roll of paper on the chest or hang it from the waist. That would simply be too convenient, which isn’t what chindogu is all about. So my idea was to put it on top of the head. At first glance, it seems that it is more convenient, because the paper is positioned closer to the nose, but it would be very difficult to actually use.
Have you ever been taking a photograph and someone walks right in front of your lens? This sign of warning could be handy: “Photographer at work: kindly wait a moment.”
The “photographer at work” sign. An idea submitted by an amateur inventor and then perfected and made by Kawakami.
Chindogu have enjoyed a huge amount of attention outside Japan…
After I had made a certain amount of chindogu, I collected them together in a book. Soon after, a reporter from the BBC came to interview me. Thanks to that interview, I was able to bring out an English-language edition of the book, and I was surprised to see chindogu had gained popularity around the world. There are now German, French, Spanish, and Chinese editions of the book, and the Korean version just came out last year.
Chindogu go international. Various translations of Kawakami’s books.
Advertisement for foreign editions of Kawakami’s books.
A colorful poster for an English-language edition.
Have people’s reactions to Chindogu been different in different countries?
Surprisingly different. In America and Japan, they are seen as entertainment. For some reason, in Korea, Canada, and Australia, they are thought of a science, and in Europe, they have been hailed as “as a new form of Dadaism,” and “contemporary art.”
Want to eat a full-course meal, but only have a small table? You may need the “Dish Tower.”
Can you guess what this is? This expandable flyswatter can nab flies in mid-air, but is not very good at getting resting flies.
But it seems that chindogu do recall some of the concepts of Dadaism and Surrealism by rejecting preconceived ideas and common sense…
Yes. I think so. I actually have made the “Chindogu Ten Commandments,” which are:
A chindogu must not actually be used
It must have some function.
It must have an anarchic element.
It must be a tool for everyday life.
It must not actually be put on the market.
It must not be only for the purpose of humor.
It must not be for black humor.
“Dirty” jokes are forbidden.
It must not be for profit.
It must be usable internationally.
Even before starting to make chindogu, I have been thinking about these “ten commandments” since my days in the student movements of the 1960s. I first came up with with chindogu as a special project for a magazine, so I was not too concerned about how people would receive them. But actually, I think of chindogu as “an intellectual game to stimulate anarchic minds,” or a physical manifestation of my way of thinking.
Frustrated with your long tresses getting into your food while you eat? Don’t get a haircut! Instead, try the “Long Hair Stopper” to keep your hair back while you dig in.
Want to be friendly to the environment while on the go? Strap on these recycling bins and take them with you everywhere.
The “Tossed Trash Bin” – you are sure to get your trash in the bin even when tossing it from a distance.
Can you give me an concrete example of your “intellectual game”?
This is an extreme example, but more money is spent on fashion in Japan than in any other country, and you can see 14 or 15-year old girls buying Louis Vuitton bags. They are expressing their identity through material things. I am not saying that beautiful clothes or designer bags are necessarily bad, but I want to have my own sense of identity even if I don’t have things.
So I have intellectual games to confirm to myself who I am. For example, if a flathead fish and sole have a baby fish, what kind of head would that baby fish have? Of the 6.7 billion people in this world, there might be as many as 30 people thinking about such a question at a given moment. I think about such things as a way of affirming my own identity. Chindogu give form to such thoughts.
Are you up against a particularly good ping-pong player? You might be able to convince them to use a handicap paddle!
The “Two Way Shoe.” When you come home, simply slide your shoes off at the entrance to your house. When you are ready to go out again, you can easily slide back into them, without the troublesome effort of turning your shoes around.
Are you particular about how you design your chindogu?
Inventions can be designed digitally or in analog. Chindogu are all designed analog. With digital design, it is like putting input into a black box and getting output, but without seeing the process in the middle. But with analog design, you can see the process, right? For example, in the children’s TV program Pythagora Switch you can see their Rube Goldberg Machines that take a marble through a very complex maze, and you can see everything. I think that kind of thing is very interesting.
Use these special glasses for applying eye drops and you will never miss your mark.
No longer do you have to cry when cutting onions. Put on these “onion glasses” and blow away the clouds of onion odor!
Chindogu are also a form of expression. For example, these “shoe umbrellas” are very colorful and cute, aren’t they? I thought a lot about the color and shape, and also how to make them properly. I am not interested in weekend D.I.Y. quality work. My goal is to construct things of such quality that you wouldn’t be surprised to see in a department store. I don’t use cardboard or polystyrene, but use metals and plastics to make them look genuine. The only thing is they are not for sale… (laughs)
Keep your toes dry on rainy days with these “shoe umbrellas.”
The names you give your chindogu are pretty descriptive.
The chindogu themselves are extreme and anarchic, so I throw a straight ball with the names. Right now I am working on the “Alarm Clock Headphones,” which is just what the name says it is. When coming home from an office party, someone could fall asleep on the train and miss their stop. If you set an alarm clock, you would also wake up the people sleeping on either side of you, so I came up with the alarm clock headphones. I thought this one would be a pain to actually make, so I just did an illustration of it. But then everyone told me that just an illustration wasn’t interesting, and it would be better to actually see it. Now I am working on making them, and it is interesting to see something so nonsensical.
Such cute little clocks.
Kawakami modeling his “Alarm Clock Headphones,” a work in progress.
Yes, it is much more interesting and powerful to actually be able to see and touch the items. Since we are almost out of time, do you have any final comments for our readers?
This spring I will be holding a chindogu exhibition in Korea, which will help to spread chindogu around the world. I hope that people will be able to see chindogu as a way of changing their way of thinking.
Kenji Kawakami, thanks for sharing your wonderful chindogu with us! We look forward to what you come up with next!
