Combining her love of sci-fi and her penchant for installations, artist Mariko Mori created a unique, encapsulating experience that literally transports the viewers to another world in Wave UFO. Mariko’s goal is to make the audience experience what it would be like to go to another planet. Inside of the pod, visitors are given “a set of electrodes that gather brainwave data” [1] that feed to a video monitor inside of the pod. This is played alongside a second video screen, and those two coupled together represent both sides of the brain’s psychology and functions. Viewers recline in padded seats placed around the pod, in which they watch the two screens. After the seven minutes of footage end, visitors disembark via the staircase.

This piece corresponds with each of her other pieces, such as Primal Rhythms 2007 [2], which is one of her pieces that includes multiple composite images of ancient ruins and landscapes, coupled with her own manufactured images of space ships and futuristic monuments. She has also crafted many other futuristic artworks, most of them self portraits of Mariko in costumes that resemble anime characters and cyborgs.

Another artist that plays with perceptions of reality is Robert Lazzarini, who makes skewed and surreal sculptures that toy with the viewers’ sense of depth and space [3]. His sculpture, payphone, is a similar object to Wave UFO, in that it is a physical object in which the artist shows how they would reinvent things around us in the physical world.

Mariko’s style is the epitome of mid 1990’s to early 2000’s sci-fi pop art, telling stories in single frames and sleek, complex installations. Her visions of the future are full of color, mysticism, and hyper-advanced technology, setting her apart from the darker parts of the art world.

[1] TeachWiki (http://teachartwiki.wikispaces.com/Mariko+Mori+-+Wave+UFO)

[2] Contemporary Art, Martha Garzon (http://www.marthagarzon.com/contemporary_art/2011/08/mariko-mori-cybergeishas-technonolgy/)

[3] AEM, Works, (Shanken, p. 94)

[4] Kunsthaus Bregenz, extra information (http://www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at/ehtml/aus_mori.htm)