Silver Photography and Photo Manipulation Design · 2022
Hand Still Participatory Art
by Kenji Fujii
- A' Design Award 2022 Silver Winner in Photography and Photo Manipulation Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Keio University Graduate School
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 64,281
- Verification code D9007E2997 · Verify this award
About Hand Still Participatory Art
Hand Still is a participatory art project created to support well-being. Participants combine their hands and fingers to suggest a landscape or a creature, photograph the pose, give the image a title, and share the result on social networks with a common tag. Viewing the shared works and creating new ones is intended to increase creativity. Hand Still applies four factors linked to well-being: self-actualization and growth, connection and gratitude, a positive and optimistic outlook, and independence and self-identity.
Working within traditions of photographic abstraction and surrealist transformation, kenji fujii's Hand Still Participatory Art achieves a remarkable visual alchemy by rendering the familiar territory of the human hand as an alien landscape of extraordinary beauty and mystery. The work participates in a lineage of macro photography that reveals hidden worlds within ordinary subjects, yet transcends mere documentation through its sophisticated compositional intelligence and profound conceptual resonance. The horizontal arrangement of fingers across the lower portion of the frame evokes horizon lines found in landscape photography, while the introduction of a small luminous sphere in the darkness above completes the illusion of a planetary vista observed from some impossible vantage point, suggesting both intimate proximity and cosmic distance simultaneously. Technical accomplishment manifests through the precise control of tonal values within a limited grayscale palette, where the warmth of flesh tones translates into the silver-gray of moonlit terrain, each fingerprint ridge becoming a mountain range carved by forces beyond human scale. The interplay between sharp focus and selective blur creates visual depth while maintaining the work's contemplative stillness, inviting prolonged examination of surface details that typically escape conscious attention. The title's reference to participatory art suggests an awareness of the viewer's role in completing the perceptual transformation, acknowledging that meaning emerges through the active engagement of looking and recognizing the familiar made strange. Thematically, the work meditates upon the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm, between the body as known territory and the body as unexplored terrain, between human presence and cosmic solitude. What does it mean to encounter one's own hand as foreign landscape, and what new understanding might emerge from such estrangement?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Hand Still is participatory art to improve well-being.
Anyone around the world can participate by sharing their own hand-expressed artwork on social networking sites. By viewing and enjoying the artwork and creating your own artwork, you can improve your wellbeing.
Hand Still includes the four factors for improving wellbeing (1: Self-Actualization and Growth, 2: Connection and Gratitude, 3: Positive and Optimistic, 4: Independence and Self-identity) are incorporated. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Hand Still is a participatory art activity project utilizing SNS.
The rule of the project is that users themselves take a picture of a hand or finger pose they have thought up, decide on a title for the work, and post it on a SNS. We hope to spread the activity and encourage participation rather than appreciation. We assume that the main platforms will be Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. - Tags
- Well-being, Participatory Art, finger, Social Network Service, Creativity, Happiness
- Production Technology
- Hand Still uses the "System Design Methodology for Intentionally Creating Well-being" lectured at Keio University Graduate School in Japan. It includes.
The four factors that improve well-being, as presented by well-being researcher "Takashi Maeno," are incorporated. It also includes ways to enhance wellbeing by increasing creativity from the "Study on Beauty and Well-Being. - Design Challenge
- Research and activities related to well-being are said to be difficult to demonstrate their effectiveness. This is because the effects vary from person to person and it is difficult to conduct research over time. Considering these factors, the scope of this project is narrowed down to "the moment of encountering a work of art" as the target of research. We were able to show through the questionnaire that this approach had a certain effect.
- Project Duration
- The project began in September 2021 and was presented on campus in January 2022; as of March 2022, the project is still active.
- Operation Flow
- How to participate in Hand Still
1.Imagine a landscape or creature by combining your hands and fingers.
2. Take a photograph of the imagined pose.
3.Think of a title for the photo.
4.Post the photo on SNS with the title and the tag "Hand Still.
5. View the works with the tag "Hand Still" to enhance your creativity. - Research
- Hand Still was born out of the Keio Graduate School's "Well-Being Management" program, a type of well-being research. The purpose was to create an unprecedented method of promoting well-being. This method was based on a survey of 82 people collected through social networking services. The results showed that 71% of the people who viewed the work were able to enhance their creativity. In addition, 15.5% of the respondents took the same action as the artwork.
- Inspiration
- Well-being is now the focus of attention due to the changing values of humankind.
As the era has progressed from economic growth to spiritual growth, the well-being industry is expected to grow. Against this background, "Hand Still" was born from a well-being management class at Keio University Graduate School (SDM) in Japan.
Well-being is expected to have various effects. For example, people who are well-being have a longer life expectancy of 10 years, higher productivity, and so on. - Image Credits
- Image #1~5: Photographer Yotaro Hirahara 2022
- Patents
- Copyrights kenji fujii
Colors of Hand Still Participatory Art
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