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August 15, 2024
 

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Cameron Allan Mckean

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Cameron Allan Mckean
Cameron Allan McKean is a culture editor and staff writer at The Japan Times. He writes about contemporary art, folk crafts and disasters in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 6, 2014
James Bridle examines war in social-media age
How differently do you think the project would have been viewed if the images of drone-attack sites were printed in a book? Is the context of the social networking site Instagram important?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 6, 2014
Carsten Nicolai makes a tribute to artist Paik
How did this work come together?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 6, 2014
Making the invisible visible at the Japan Media Arts Festival
In 1965, artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006) attached a strong magnet to the top of a television. The crisp image, overpowered by the magnet, folded onto itself in beautiful geometric waves. But it wasn't meant to be beautiful; it was an attack.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 27, 2014
Can big names help the plight of small factories?
The smooth, metallic surface reflects the sunlight coming through the window. Without touching it you can see that this is an object made with great care — even though it came from a factory. I'm inside a shop run by Lexus in Tokyo, but what I'm looking at isn't part of a luxury car, it's a small metal...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 4, 2014
Kenya Hara: the future of design
Sitting at a plain white table in a meeting room high up on the 12th floor of a narrow building in central Tokyo, product designer Kenya Hara asks me to picture a shallow plate in my mind. "Now imagine a slightly deeper plate," Hara says, "that gets deeper and deeper and eventually becomes a bowl."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Dec 16, 2013
Kyojima: Tokyo's epicenter of disaster risk?
Kyojima in eastern Tokyo is a perfect storm of natural-disaster risk, but while the metropolitan government is trying to get old people out, young people are moving in.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 18, 2013
It's a dog's life, but architects can find ways to improve it
What would our cities look like if they had been built with a different scale in mind? What if we considered building structures for creatures other than humans? "Architecture for Dogs" explores that idea with an exhibition of 13 architectural works made for specific canine breeds. After debuting at...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 28, 2013
Smashing ideas on future design and technology
While contemporary art is still transfixed by its own reflection, veteran Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa has focused her cultural microscope on something quite different. "Bunny Smash Design to touch the world," the current group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, is a hit-and-miss...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2013
Tokyo Designers Week uses music, art as draws
The definition of design in Japan is changing. Depending on who you speak to, what falls under its umbrella is either shrinking or expanding to include nearly all aspects of modern life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2013
Kawasaki has a plan for Tokyo Designers Week
Born in Toyama Prefecture in 1948, Kenji Kawasaki is the founder and producer of Tokyo Designers Week (TDW), as well as chairman of Design Association, an NPO seeking to create a new culture of “innovation” in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 21, 2013
The new look of Japanese artisans
Machi-ku014dba is the name given to small, city factories in Japan, usually operated by a family, or a handful of craftspeople. While traditional Japanese crafts slowly gather dust in museums, the baton of the 'unknown craftsman' has been passed on to these factories.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2013
Real-world validations of our digital realm
"We are now living in a super, hyper-extended information society," says curator Masafumi Fukugawa, "and that idea was the starting point for our new exhibition."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2013
Japanese collectors take a conceptual turn
Echoing the choice of Koki Tanaka — a conceptual artist — for the Japanese pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale this year, "Why Not Live For Art? II: 9 collectors reveal their treasures" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery suggests that art collecting in Japan has taken a conceptual turn.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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