It contains no sand.
　

Here it stands on a shelf at Living World (the leather sheet shown is the one used at exhibitions).

Relationship is
a moment everlasting.
　　

Something immeasurable
never ending
between us growing
infinitely.
　

　
In this time: relationship is infinity

Sandglass H140×D57mm
This freestanding sandglass is one-and-a-half times the size of the Sunlight/Moonlight sandglasses.
Sand: none
Leather sheet: 150mm square

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4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
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Our preference is generally for freestanding, purely glass sandglasses, however we were seduced by the attractive contrast of white sandglass and dark walnut frame.

Thermonuclear fusion reactions are generated in the sun’s core, then apparently it takes around a million years for this energy to reach the surface of the sun and be radiated into space as light.

If the diameter of the sun was say a meter, then that of the earth would be about a centimeter.
The distance between them would work out to around 100 meters.

Light spreads out from the sun in all directions at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second.
A few minutes later, it arrives on earth.

The light received by the earth is only a tiny fraction of that radiated by the sun.
But this tiny fraction of sunlight is all it takes to create phenomena such as wind and ocean currents, and enable plants to make organic compounds and all the life forms on earth to live.

This sandglass marks the length of one segment of this chain.

In this time: sunlight reaches earth (wooden frame)

Sandglass W:65×D:33×H:100mm
Frame: Walnut
Leather sheet 100mm square
Sand: Natural white sand (Australia)

Frame design: monokraft (Toru Shimizu, Ken Katsumata)
monokraft are a pair of furniture makers whose photo frame designs are used for the Living World sandglass series. (The frames are manufactured at a separate workshop)

Price: 12,000 JPY

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4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
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A laser was used to etch around 80,000 of the stars in the Milky Way, using three-dimensional data from the Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory.

Production of the cube was motivated by the urge to see a galaxy in three dimensions. In encyclopedias and such, galaxies can only be viewed in two: we wanted to do so from all directions. Even the Magellan Cloud, comparatively close to us, is outside this cube. Space can be sparsely filled, one could say…or rather, there are great extremes in density.

The first cube was produced for the “Window” exhibition at Mashiko/Starnet in 2005.

Due to government stipulations governing the use of observatory data, we were unable to release the cube for commercial sale immediately, however thanks to the tireless efforts of all those involved, it can at last be offered for sale.

In this version the overall dimensions of the cube have been reduced from the 15cm square of 2005, to 12cm. (Previously the glass block was too heavy and difficult to handle.)

The reason the galaxy is positioned slightly to one side is that the Solar System (in other words, Earth) has been placed in the exact center. This is where the title “Beyond our solar system” originates.

Nobody has ever seen our galaxy from outside like this. And it is unlikely that mankind will reach anywhere with this sort of view for a very long time.

The same could once be said for Earth. Nobody had seen the overall view of our planet from outside. The first view of the Earth by humans from space was apparently via footage shot from an unmanned V2 rocket in 1946.

In any case, it was about 60 years ago. However world maps depicting the whole of the planet have been around for centuries. This for example is a map of the world drawn in France in 1760. Note the parts here and there where unfortunately they didn’t get it quite right…

MAPPE MONDE Joseph Delisle“The Image of the World”

A world map in which imagination makes up for what experience and measurements fail to reveal.

In fact the three-dimensional data for the galaxy is apparently of a similar accuracy to world maps from the Age of Exploration. No one knows it all. There is a gas cloud at the center of the galaxy, and even using technology such as radio telescopes, we are still unable to build an accurate picture of what lies on the other side.

All the star data obtainable using the latest observation apparatus, and theoretical calculations by computer. Add some imagination to fill in the missing parts, and you have the maps of our galaxy that researchers around the world draw and compare among themselves. When it comes to galaxies, this is as far as mankind has come.

“Beyond the solar system” was built using data from a project dubbed 4D2U. The galactic data for 4D2U was produced by Eiichiro Kokubo, Assistant Professor in the Division of Theoretical Astronomy at the National Astronomical Observatory, and Kato Tsunehiko, now at Osaka University, based on the latest results of theoretical simulations.

This data is acknowledged internationally as some of the best-quality galactic data currently available.

Next we have the 42cmΦ black velvet cloth on which the cube stands. Light refracts to create three-dimensional reflections. The galaxy is laid out so that the tabletop aligns with the ecliptic and horizon.

We usually see this galaxy from the inside, as the “Milky Way”. In it are the Sun, the Earth, and us.
Our world has a center. Outside it extends all this space.

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Beyond our solar system
Milky Way galaxy 3D model

Glass cube W:120×D:120×H:120mm (about 100,000 light-year length)
weight 5.3kg
Black velvet cloth
Original data: NINS, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 4D2U Project
Eiichiro Kokubo, Kato Tsunehiko (→Mitaka++)
Data designing: Yukio Ando (exa)
Laser marking: L-TEC Inc.

Price: 84,000 JPY …SOLD OUT

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4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

John Cage (Wikipedia)

On a day in 1952, Cage held a concert at Woodstock, at which he intended to unveil a new composition. The new work was to be performed by pianist David Tudor.

An enthusiastic audience filled the hall, eager to hear Cage’s latest composition. The lights dimmed, and the pianist appeared on stage.

Sitting down at the piano, he closed the lid (the lids on concert pianos are opened in readiness for the performance), then after four minutes and 33 seconds, returned the lid to its original position, and left the stage.

A silent composition, with no performance: this was Cage’s new work.

Cage’s Woodstock concert sent shockwaves through the musical world, and since then, 4’33” has been covered by many different artists.

So just what was so shocking about Cage’s composition, that reverberates even now?

Confronted with a pianist who simply sat there with the lid closed, the hearing of the people gathered in the concert hall that day must have immediately grown more acute.

The sound of someone coughing discreetly in the silent hall; the faint chirping of birds from outside; the sound of dishes being moved in the foyer; distant car horns, the buzz of bafflement that gradually grew inside the hall.

Cage did not create music, he created the experience of listening.
He expanded sensory perception, without using drugs.

He succeeded in creating an open window on the world already here.

If music is the “enjoyment” of “sound”, then it must center on not just the side making the sound, but the side listening. In fact, really it is listening that is music.
As we savor the sound of rain, music is being created within us.

The frame is made of Japanese walnut, with just the right mingling of subtle hues.

4’33” demonstrated in the most extreme way the essence of the idea that music is all about listening, an idea that still has the power to shake musicians in the 21st century, and those of us who are not musicians.

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In this time: the silent musical work 4’33” was first performed
(August 1952; composed by John Cage)

Sandglass W:85×D:45×H:130mm
Wooden frame: Japanese walnut
Leather sheet 130mm square
Sand: Ironsand

Frame design: monokraft (Toru Shimizu, Ken Katsumata)
monokraft are a pair of furniture makers whose photo frame designs are used for the Living World sandglass series. (The frames are manufactured at a separate workshop)

Price: 11,000 JPY

All prices in Japanese yen.
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Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

The star Eta Carinae（Sep.1995/Hubble space telescope NASA）

The lifespan of the Sun has been estimated at 10.9 billion years.
It has now been around for 4.6 billion years, near the halfway mark.
Eventually, the Sun too will expire.

The Sun is a relatively small fixed star in the galaxy. In addition to the Sun, the Milky Way galaxy to which we belong contains over 200 billion fixed stars, and beyond that, the universe contains countless galaxies.

In that vast expanse, at this very moment there are stars whose lives are coming to an end.

The dust that falls from space that we spoke of in connection with another sandglass, the “Space dust…” glass, is generated by the death (explosion etc.) of such stars.

Various elements, e.g. nitrogen and carbon, scattered as dust form large clouds in which organic materials such as amino acids are said to form.
We’ve been taught to view the oceans as the cradle of life, but an even more primeval source is these clouds of dust spread throughout space.

NGC3603

Eventually material begins to coalesce in the clouds,
gravity is born,
little by little the mass begins to rotate under its own power,
and over many, many light years, a new star is born.

Our Sun, born in this same way, will come to the end of its time in around six billion years, then after many long light years, a new star will emerge.

From the demise of one generation comes the next, the previous generation becoming part of it.

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In this time: 100 stars cease to shine

Sandglass W:65×D:33×H:100mm
Frame: Walnut
Leather sheet 100mm square
Sand: Natural white sand (Australia)

Frame design: monokraft (Toru Shimizu, Ken Katsumata)
monokraft are a pair of furniture makers whose photo frame designs are used for the Living World sandglass series. (The frames are manufactured at a separate workshop)

Price: 8,000 JPY

All prices in Japanese yen.
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Living World Inc.
4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

Virtually all of the atoms in our bodies and in the Earth were in interstellar grains – stardust grains – before the solar system formed.
(Donald Brownlee, astronomer)

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
(From Book of Common Prayer)

Out in space, one after another stars are coming to the end of their lives. At the same time, one after another, children are starting life on this planet.

Each of those children is a star.
Or perhaps the manifestation of a moment in the long life of a star.

The “In this time” series also includes a sandglass marking the disappearance of stars, and one marking the time taken for dust to fall from space. Together they form a related trio.

What are humans?
Shoots appear from dirt by the roadside and grow, then flower, giving nectar to bees before dying off and being broken down by microbes. From here, a new shoot peeks through.

Stars, people, plants.
Their time may be measured in different scales, but they share the construct of a neverending cycle of life and death.

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In this time: 100 babies are born

Sandglass W:65×D:33×H:100mm
Wooden frame: Japanese walnut
Leather sheet 130mm square
Sand: Natural sand from Egypt

Frame design: monokraft (Toru Shimizu, Ken Katsumata)
monokraft are a pair of furniture makers whose photo frame designs are used for the Living World sandglass series. (The frames are manufactured at a separate workshop)

Price: 8,000 JPY

All prices in Japanese yen.
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Living World Inc.
4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

This sandglass shows the time taken for that dive.

The frame is made from castor arabia wood sourced from Hokkaido (Japan), combining white wood with white sand.

Some cannot resist flipping the glass upside down to see if they can hold their breath as long, but the actual length of time is not really the issue here. It’s about what Mayol was doing at the time, and where he was.

Mayol did not simply hold his breath, he went 100 meters under the sea, and lived to tell the tale.
So what did this actually entail?

Just prior to the dive. Mayol is sitting on a platform on a boat, regulating his breathing in preparation for the dive.From Mayol’s book Homo Delphinus: The Dolphin Within Man.

Two or three meters underwater, the temperature drops abruptly. Mayol dives on, deeper and deeper.
Fifty meters down, it is said that light from the surface becomes virtually non-existent, and one is surrounded entirely by blue.

The maximum prescribed depth for scuba diving is 65 meters. Mayol dives deeper.From Homo Delphinus

A can containing air would be flattened at this depth.
Then down to 80, 90 meters.

The air Mayol inhaled on the surface was at a pressure of 1 atmosphere (atm = mean sea level pressure). Enormous water pressure is bearing down on Mayol’s body. His stomach is forced in, making his ribs stand out, and he takes on the appearance of a deep sea fish.

At a depth of just under 100m, the water temperature is probably around 10 degrees. Having made it to this bone-chilling realm, Mayol now feels the whole weight of the sea on his shoulders. And the sensation that his body might fuse with the sea…

Around 1970, during the period of intense competition between Mayol and fellow freediver Enzo Maiorca depicted in the film The Big Blue, the World Underwater Federation, which counted Jacques Cousteau among its founders, decided not to recognize freediving (what was known as the no-limit variety) as a sport.

This is not like running the 100-meter sprint, or climbing 100 meters.
As Mayol put it, we live with the entire weight of the atmosphere on our shoulders. We live at the bottom of the air.

Diving to the bottom of the ocean adds to that physical burden the entire weight of the sea.
If one can dive to a certain point, why not another meter? That meter though, might be the one that causes your chest to collapse.

One hundred meters underwater is not a place intended for human habitation.
Only now do we appreciate how incredible Mayol’s feat really was.

On the boat before the dive. Mayol is on deck, practising his breathing techniques. From Homo Delphinus

One day, a man slid from the side of a boat floating in the Mediterranean into the sea, dived 100 meters, and came back up.
Described thus, it seems very simple, but those few minutes were in fact an incredible adventure, a first for mankind.

Time may seem to pass the same way everywhere, but its weight and intensity can differ.
Allowing of course for those not yet born, at this moment on this day in 1976, where were we, and how were we passing the time?

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In this time: the freediving world record surpassed a depth of 100m
(1976; Jacques Mayol)

Sandglass W:85×D:45×H:130mm
Wooden frame: Castor arabia (Sen)
Leather sheet 130mm square
Sand: Natural white sand/sparsely flecked with minute grains of black (Australia)

Frame design: monokraft (Toru Shimizu, Ken Katsumata)
monokraft are a pair of furniture makers whose photo frame designs are used for the Living World sandglass series. (The frames are manufactured at a separate workshop)

Price: 11,000 JPN

All prices in Japanese yen.
Please use your favorite currency conversion website to check values in local currency.
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To order from outside Japan, please send the following via our “Contact” form.

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Living World Inc.
4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

The wooden frame is 10cm high, with details laser-etched on top.

The notion of dust falling from space had never crossed our minds. Our investigations opened up a whole new fascinating world, so here we report a section of our findings.

The clouds in the sky are made up of masses of tiny cloud particles. Inside each is a speck of dust. Apparently every raindrop also contains a dust speck.

Many different types of dust are suspended in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Dust emitted by cars, dust whipped up by desert winds, the burnt remains of our bodies.

Added to these billions of tons of dust that make their way up into the sky every year, are around 30-40,000 tons of dust falling from space.

This is space dust, tinier than the breadth of a human hair (0.5mm/100 microns).

Meteorites are part of the same phenomenon.
Their greater mass causes them to gradually accelerate, until friction makes them burn up when passing through the Earth’s atmosphere, to become shooting stars.

Drawing of the meteor shower of 1833.

Space dust however is so minute that gravity works in a different way. The dust does not accelerate enough to burn up.
Once trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere, dust that was flying about in space rapidly decelerates, and takes about a month to slowly descend to the ground.

So how much of what we see is the Earth, and how much is space?
Most of us probably just differentiate between them by thinking vacuum = space. By dust does not have such boundaries.

We stand here in space like the Little Prince. The ground and space are connected.
The constant rain of dust from space is testament to this.

Who studies this dust?
Investigations began in the 19th century, and today this work is continued by scientists across the globe. One reason they find space dust so intriguing is that it harbors the secrets of the creation of our solar system, and the universe.

The “In this time” series consists of a trio of sandglasses of this size.

The glasses are made for Living World by a Tokyo craftsman, who with his son, produces the majority of hourglasses in Japan.

The glass tube is heated on a burner to 700-800 degrees, stretched and expanded, all by hand.
Every time we visit the studio, we come away full of stunned admiration at their skill.

The narrow part through which the sand passes is referred to as the “wasp waist”. We have yet to find a craftsman able to form this curve as beautifully as our two.

The “Malaysia” sand used in this sandglass is difficult to obtain, so a new sand will probably by selected for the next batch of glasses. We choose our sands from among undyed natural sands, but this reddish-brown sand with its glittering glass flecks is in a class of its own. We love it, and urge anyone interested in acquiring a “Malaysia” version of the space dust sandglass to place their orders promptly.

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In this time: 100 kg of space dust falls to earth

Sandglass W:65×D:33×H:100mm
Wooden frame: Japanese walnut
Leather sheet 100mm square
Sand: Malaysia (Natural sand)

Frame design: monokraft (Toru Shimizu, Ken Katsumata)
monokraft are a pair of furniture makers whose photo frame designs are used for the Living World sandglass series. (The frames are manufactured at a separate workshop)

Price: 8,000 JPN

All prices in Japanese yen.
Please use your favorite currency conversion website to check values in local currency.
Yahoo! finance

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To order from outside Japan, please send the following via our “Contact” form.

1. Name
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See other products

We will contact you by email, after reviewing your order, with the total price including tax and shipping, and payment methods.
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Living World Inc.
4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

We became enraptured by the sound on his first solo CD The Machineries of Joy several years ago and have since collaborated with him on many LW projects including liv-lit at the KEPCO Building in Osaka and Waiting for the Wind at Starnet Zone in Mashiko.

This CD includes two sources of sound from A DAY created for the Time! Time! Time! exhibition at held at MeSci (National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) as well as a “long play” (or “chillout” combining synthesized sounds with sounds of nature) from the nighttime event Traveling with St. GIGA held in Autumn 2002. We are thrilled to be offering this stunning new disk.

((( Sample the music )))
Flash Player

1. A DAY (Ichinose, 1:39)

2. Days, moments and memories (Ichinose, 8:17)

3. Traveling with St.GIGA (Ichinose, Kawasaki, 32:50)

VIDEO from the Traveling with St.GIGA
On 10/11 a DJ event inspired by the ambient St. Giga sound was held at the Sputnik Dome at the Tokyo Designers Block design festival. (Video: Tsutomu Shimada)

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A DAY
Kyo Ichinose + Living World
Audio CD/ June.2007

Tracks
　1. A DAY (Ichinose)　1:39
　2. Days, moments and memories (Ichinose)　8:17
　3. Traveling with St.GIGA (Ichinose, Kawasaki)　32:50

Price: 1,500 JPN

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To order from outside Japan, please send the following via our “Contact” form.

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Living World Inc.
4-8-22-1F Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo JAPAN 168-0064
Fax: +81-3-5930-9823

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Track 1,2 composed and mixed by Kyo Ichinose
Track 3 recorded 11 Oct. 2002 at SPUTNIK DOME, TOKYO DESIGNER’S BLOCK
Composed and played by Kyo Ichinose
Mixing and sound design by Yoshihiro Kawasaki
All tracks masterd by Kyo Ichinose and Tetsuya Yamamoto

Special thanks to Fumiko Ikeda, Mahoro Uchida, Yoko Yokouchi