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Desktop Fireworks: A Mood Lifting Surprise Party For One

09.02.14 | By
Desktop Fireworks: A Mood Lifting Surprise Party For One

‘Desktop Fireworks’ appears just like any other unassuming desk set: a mug, binder folders, a tape dispenser, stationery drawers, and pin board. A monochromatic melange of ho-hum workplace accessories. Only the presence of a big bright red button hints something special awaits for the cubicle bound.

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Tomomi Sayuda’s digital art installation is a bittersweet homage to his own father, a man who committed suicide at the young age of only 37 years old due to work-related stress. Melancholic memories inspired Sayuda to seek to offer salarymen everywhere a safe and festive outlet for mounting stress in the workplace.

With the press of a tempting big Emergency-style wireless button an orchestra of LED lights, music, and shower of confetti and bubbles is unleashed to bathe the desk in a miniature party-for-one. Unsuspecting desk occupants will surely smile through the confusion, hopefully feeling a little more relaxed upon being treated to such a spectacle devised just for them.

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I have been naturally fascinated by stress relieving solutions. In addition, our daily lives have strong contrast in the day – work-  and night -play-  traditionally. There are words of  ‘Hare’ (sacred) and ‘Ke’(secular), which we often use to describe our cultural contrasts in daily life and unusual days. I would like to represent the strong contrast in the daily life in the office, and opposite exciting elements for entertainments such as fireworks, which is popular in Japan as summer night festival. Those two opposite elements always need to live together, particularly in hard work societies. Therefore I hide my entertainment elements inside practical modern office stationary and create contrasts and surprises to uplift human emotion.

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Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.