[From The Creators Project, where the post includes animated gifs; more information and gifs are available on the Prosthetic Knowledge site]

From Berlin To Tokyo, People Are Turning Their Faces Into Tablets

By Ella Riley Adams — Feb 6 2014

With her Yamada Taro project, Katsuki Nogami explores ideas of international identity and the anonymity of technology. Yamada Taro is a placeholder Japanese name, like John Smith in the US. To create placeholder people, Nogami attached iPads to performers’ faces. The performers then took photos of people they encountered on the streets of Berlin and Tokyo. Each photo appeared on the iPad screens in both cities as well as in the hall where Nogami presented her project, giving each “person” a transcontinental existence.

Nogami describes the iPad people as “walking icons,” representations of people who masquerade as others online. Watching the semi-cyborgs totter around crowds in Germany and Japan, we can see both the playful and spooky effect of interacting with anonymity.

Check out the short video for yourself [on Vimeo].