Microsoft’s Designed on Surface campaign continues adding creatively passionate individuals to its roster of artists who use various Surface devices to express themselves in some of the most elaborate ways possible. Recently, the campaign came across another street artist by the name of Frankie Cihi on its way to the POW! WOW! Tokyo festival.
The POW! WOW! Festival is best described as a “gathering that celebrates culture, music, and art.” Specifically, the event is a week-long gathering that has evolved into a global networking of artists who help organize showcases gallery shows, lecture series, classes for art and music, mural projects, concerts, and live art installations.
Last fall the Surface team ran across the work of Cihi, and five other artists collaborated on a piece of artwork from which inspiration from her surrounding city’s sights and sounds was then used at the POW! WOW! Tokyo festival.
Cihi’s work and use of the Surface vary slightly from the other Designed on Surface street artists that have been previously highlighted. Where other artists have used their Surface devices as digital notepads and portable projectors to splash wall-sized concepts of their imagination, Cihi made use of the Surface camera to capture already existing imagery.
Using the built-in camera on her Surface Pro 3, Cihi was able to capture the nature she found in the streets of the Shibuya district of Tokyo and ‘incorporate organic lines of color’ thanks in part to nature being a central theme that makes up Japanese art and lifestyle. Cihi’s process of image capture with the Surface Pro devices provides a unique layering effect of naturally created imagery combined with the imagination of an artist and blurs the line between life imitating art or art representing life.
Once again, the Surface brand of devices are finding a niche among those who see the value in its all-encompassing, portable, and powerful design.
