Taico Club wants to know, "What makes you smile?"

by Chris MaGee

Sometimes when you go online you don’t know what you’re going to stumble upon. Case in point: The Taico Club Art Project. I was actually tooling around YouTube looking for newly posted trailers, etc. and I came across these fantastic little commercials and short films that all fell under the banner of “Taico Club”. I immediately investigated further. It turns out Taico Club is an annual 24-hour summer rave/ music festival that takes place up in the green hilly country of Nagano Prefecture . The fest normally emphasizes techno and experimental dance music, but earlier this year the people behind Taico Club decided that they would ask a group of Japanese commercial artists like Daisuke Shimada of Qotori Film and tripon to create promotional videos for Taico Club based around the question “What Makes You Smile?” Simple concept, but as you can see from the examples below you get some pretty wild interpretations.

Check out more of the shorts at the Taico Club Art Project website or at Kohji Takano’s YouTube Channel.


TAICO CLUB Art Project Vol.5 Qotori Film




TAICO CLUB Art Project Vol.3 tripon