A commercial promoting the Laforet Grand Bazar winter sale in Harajuku (January 20-24) features a mob of people with flickering LED-illuminated smiles who overrun a dramatic love scene reminiscent of a popular '90s-era TV show.
The ad -- entitled "Geee / Harajuku Love Story" -- makes use of wirelessly-controlled Mouth LED technology developed by artists Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi.
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Here is a rough translation of the dialogue that takes place as the smiling mob approaches.
[Man]: We can make it work. I'll do my best.
[Woman]: Will you come to see me if I get lonely at night, no matter what?
[Man]: I will go immediately. I'll fly.
[Woman]: Will you come and pick me up if I call you from Mt. Everest?
[Man]: I'll fly there right away.
[Woman]: Will you bring me hot nabe soup if I ask for it?
[Man]: I will. I'll bring a year's worth.
[Woman]: What if I asked you to take me to the moon?
[Man]: That might be difficult...
[Woman]: That's not good enough.
[Man]: But I can make you happy.
The commercial appears to have been inspired by an earlier project by Manabe and Ishibashi entitled "Party in the Mouth," which featured a mob of women with glowing LED smiles wandering the streets of Tokyo at night.
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Here is some video from the Laforet website:
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morfes
That's just creepy.
[]Mel
...and kinda cool.
[]Fabled
I'll stick with creepy...
[]uni
This is creepy...like souless fake smiling robots with light up mouths. Just creepy.
[]Christina Smith
They really need to figure out a solution for that wire. I would accept it better without that there.
[]naught
Till Lindemann would be proud
[]Jon Allen
Interesting, there's a story in the Japan times today : http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20110130a1.html about how the foreign media have picked this up as the latest fashion trend amongst Japanese schoolgirls! did it start here perhaps?
[]harry thomas
how can we buuy this
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