Agnes Giard

English summary: There is a love doll industry in Japan producing life-size dolls to serve as "substitute partners." Curiously, these high-end sex products are made in the phantasmic form of young girls with vacant eyes and incomplete bodies. Is it even possible to "use" them? These moulded ersatzes confronting humans with the issue of solitude provide a representative model of what is deemed to be exciting and attractive in today's society. Companies competing in this market advertise them not as "products to sell," but as "girls to marry." When the client cannot, or does not, want to keep his doll, the latter is given a Buddhist funeral. Usually these "love dolls" look so real that they could fool anyone. Currently, the Japanese are investing millions in robotic research and are focusing particularly on ways to simulate human consciousness. These dolls constitute a genuine laboratory for artificial life research. They serve as models for android prototypes and influence cutting-edge research in the field of anthropomorphism. This book's approach to the subject thus ventures well beyond the anecdotal. This survey goes to the very heart of a system that is delivering new forms of psychic life. Japanese look-alikes are expected to invade the world and to do so all the more quickly because these objects offer something more than a realistic appearance. French description: Il existe au Japon une industrie de love doll, des poupees grandeur nature concues pour servir de partenaires de substitution. Curieusement, ces produits sexuels haut de gamme se presentent sous la forme fantomatique de jeunes filles aux regards vides et aux corps incomplets... Est-il seulement possible de les utiliser? Confrontant les humains a la question de la solitude, ces ersatz moules dans les postures d'une attente sans fin fournissent un modele representatif de ce qui est considere comme excitant et attirant dans la societe actuelle. Les firmes qui s'en disputent le marche les presentent non pas comme des produits a vendre mais comme des filles a marier. Lorsque le client ne peut ou ne veut plus garder sa poupee, celle-ci beneficie de funerailles bouddhiques. A priori, ces love doll sont si ressemblantes qu'elles pourraient bien faire illusion. Ont-elles un coeur? Une ame? Les Japonais investissent actuellement des millions dans la recherche en robotique et s'interessent tout particulierement aux moyens de simuler la conscience. Or ces poupees constituent un veritable laboratoire pour la recherche en vie artificielle. Elles servent de modeles a des prototypes d'androides et influencent les recherches de pointe en matiere d'anthropomorphisme. Le sujet de ce livre depasse donc l'anecdotique. Il s'agit d'une enquete au coeur d'un systeme en train d'accoucher de formes de vies psychiques nouvelles. Les simulacres japonais devraient envahir le monde et cela d'autant plus rapidement que ces objets proposent quelque chose de plus qu'un aspect realiste. Quoi?

Text in English, French & German. This book is a highlight for all fans of tattoo, and Japan as well! Photographer Martin Hladik attended the Japanese tattoo master Horikazu with his camera for years, and he presents now the lifework of a remarkable tattoo artist in spectacular images. With this book, comprising scant 500 pages with more than 460 pictures you are diving into the still hidden world of traditional Japanese tattooing. Interviews with the late master (2011) and his successor Horikazuwaka provide virtually intimate insights into the art of tattooing in Asakusa, and give a glance of the protagonists of a recognised dynasty of tattoo artists. Functioning and techniques of this handicraft are shown in-depth. Furthermore you will experience the fascinating aesthetics, and the complex conception of motifs in traditional Japanese tattoos displayed in gorgeous photographs, from Koi to Kabuki, from Buddha to Benzaiten. Anyone of the tattoos reproduced is one of a kind, it was exclusively created for the wearer, and made by hand. More highlights come with pictures of the personal, and familial life of the master. You may visit his studio, and watch him tattoo his clients. The present selection of not previously published designs is a true rarity! Downright sensational, and unique up-to-date is a series of full-page pictures of Horikazu's clients, presenting their full body tattoos openly and with self-confidence. Total works of art of an ingenious artist, stung into the skin, lasting an eternity. HORIKAZU is an iconographical benchmark, and contains a fully comprehensive account of traditional Japanese tattooing. The illustrious Sanja festival in Asakusa is displayed in stirring images from past and presence. Finally photographs from Horikazu's funeral reveal another aspect of Japanese tradition, whether closest friends pay their last respects to the master. Text input from qualified authors provides access to the secretive world of images of Japanese tattoo art. Tattooists, tattoo fans and any art lover will certainly be thrilled by this unrivalled illustrated book.