A última tendência tecnológica em Tokyo são as salas privadas equipadas com internet, dvd players, tv com satélite e playstation. É alí que os jovens encontram os amigos para uma partida de video game, profissionais conferem o desempenho de suas ações e casais vão paquerar.

Como se isso não fosse suficiente para entreter as pessoas, nos arredores das salas privadas, os cidadãos de Tokyo têm à disposição uma completíssima livraria com livros e revistas.

The latest technology trend in Tokyo are private rooms for a rental fee, where customers can check in to a technology room for as along as they like. Once inside, every aspect of technology is available to them from the Internet and DVD players to TV (regular and satellite) to Sony Playstation. If the pod renter becomes overwhelmed by technology, there is also a nearby library with books and magazines to take back to their pod.

Young people are meeting their friends there to surf the net and play video games; business men are checking their stock and email; couples go to flirt; and many are even staying overnight. It is accepted that what goes on in these pods is private, making them a popular place for personal matters.

Worldstudio Foundation é uma instituição sem fins lucrativos fundada em 1993, a qual acredita no poder que a criatividade tem para mudar a atual conjuntura social.

Guided by the belief that creativity holds enormous power for social change, Worldstudio Foundation works to engage the creative community in shaping a better world for tomorrow.

Check out some of the program’s results:

Jessica Fei, mentee, age 16, Hunter College High School, with mentor, Rachel Ericson, Sesame Workshop

“What are you made of? We’re all different compositions of the same set of elements. You might be surprised to find out what someone in your life is really made of Ñ- your worst enemy may be more like you than you think. So the next time you roll your eyes at the ‘freak’ down the block, stop and challenge yourself to take a second look. Have you got it in you?” – Jessica Fei and Rachel Ericson

Crystal Bruno, mentee, age 16, Martin Luther King Jr. High School, with mentor, Andria Johnson, People Magazine

“This program meant a lot to me about responsibility, bettering myself and preparing for the future. It also clarified my future in the sense that goals, which once seemed unobtainable, I now see, can be accomplished and surpassed. On a more personal level, the project was very intimate because it dealt with a lot of issues in my life. I used my niece as the visual subject. Young people are the heroes of the future.” – Crystal Bruno.

♫ Muse – Falling  away with you

Twelve years ago the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program commissioned Roy Lichtenstein to create a mural for the Times Square subway station. A native New Yorker who had ridden the subway since boyhood, Lichtenstein jumped at the chance to create a work of public art. So he designed a 6-foot-tall, 53-foot-long porcelain enamel futuristic vision of New York, which he decided to make a gift to the city.

Lichtenstein fabricated the mural in 1994, three years before his death. Although it was ready to be installed then, plans for the redevelopment of Times Square were delayed and the mural was put in storage, where it has been ever since. But now, to coincide with the renovation of tbe Times Square subway station, the M.T.A. is putting the work in its rightful place. On Sept. 5 it will unveil “Times Square Mural” near the main entrance at 42nd Street and Broadway.

“A half a million people a day come through the Times Square subway station,” said Sandra Bloodworth, director of the Arts for Transit Program. “Roy’s desire to make this gift was an example of how much he believed in the subway and in New York.”

“Times Square Mural” incorporates many of the artist’s signature elements, including comic-book characters and science-fiction themes. Lichtenstein also made visual references to the 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fairs. In one portion of the mural, a Buck Rogers figure steps out of a space ship, looking through the remains of a crumbling 20th-century 42nd Street subway station and onto the city of the future. An image of the original 1904 plaque of the number 42, created by Grueby Faience of Boston, one of the most important terra-cotta manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century, was also incorporated,into the artist’s scheme.

Source: Roy Lichtenstein Foundation

♫ Collective Soul – How do you love