All About Factories and Other Cool Things
You never know what will become the next interesting mini-boom in a place like Japan. Over the past few years, many Japanese have decided that the coolest thing is...factories? Amazingly, the strange industrial beauty of factories and other dark places like electric power plants does have a certain charm, and there have been a string of popular photobooks dedicated to capturing these eerie places. There's a variety show on TV that features objects being made in factories while famous TV personalities try to guess what's being manufactured, writing their answers on digital screens that are later revealed so the audience can laugh at all the wrong answers. It's quite fascinating to watch nylon fibers being spun and coated in plastic that turns out to be a fire house, or watch as long rods of steel are fed into a machine which clips pieces off and stamps them into pachinko balls. I was also fascinated to see how Mitsubishi makes pencils -- I couldn't take my eyes off the bizarre stream of wood as it was shaped and wrapped around the graphite leads.
posted by Peter in Japan at 8:26 PM
4 Comments:
there's this cable show, made in Canada, called "How it's made." they show all sorts of things being manufactured, from soda pop to cellos. It's shown in America on the Discovery Channel.
9:08 PM
Cool, maybe its part of a trend around the world. Good idea, consider how important it all is. What if things continued to the extreme, with the Chinese having all the manufacturing know-how and the developed nations losing it.
11:57 PM
Footage of machines making crayons and saxophones and such accompanied by tinkling piano was a signature segment of Mr Roger's Neighborhood, as well. In the US it might be linked to that nostalgia.
(I think you mean "fire hose" not "fire house" in the post... unless the Japanese are constructing buildings out of nylon thread. I wouldn't put it past them.)
4:41 AM
oh my gosh I loved that show you're talking about! It was hilarious to see what those idols were thinking, and really cool to see how things like car mirrors and those little blue flamable things you use for cooking (the name totaly escapes me) are made.
6:48 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home