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DUBAI: A supersized emoji installation is now featured in Dubai, presented as The Big Flat Now by Japanese artist Shōei Matsuda and curated by Global Art Daily Agency.

The Big Flat Now is one of the largest art installations presented by a Japanese artist in Dubai, and is in line with Dubai Festival City Mall’s initiative to elevate shopping malls as a destination to enjoy contemporary art.

Standing 7 meters tall, The Big Flat Now is a massive emoji balloon, featuring a 3D reproduction of the popular the Face with Tears of Joy emoji, the most used emoji globally of the past decade, and named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2015.

Conceptualized by Matsuda, the installation celebrates the widespread accessibility of emojis in an era hyper-saturated with information and content, marked by instantaneous social media reshares.

Accompanying the installation will be the deployment of The Big Flat Now’s Augmented Reality (AR) Instagram filter designed by the artist, providing audiences the ability to interact with the artwork and add a Face with Tears of Joy emoji mask to their face.

The artist’s goal with this exhibition is to reflect on themes of anonymity, authorship, and consciousness that the internet has introduced to billions around the globe. Japanese interface designer Shigetaka Kurita is credited with the creation of emojis, when he designed 176 emojis as part of the Japanese telecommunication giant’s NTT Docomo’s i-mode in 1999.

By bringing The Big Flat Now to Dubai, Matsuda touches upon the global impact of emojis, and the new non-verbal, universal language they have created.

Reflecting on the work, Tokyo-based artist Matsuda said: “My work celebrates a decade of human emotion: the laughing-crying emoji brings two opposite feelings together. I wanted to celebrate the most used emoji since 2010, as a symbol of our times.”

Sophie Mayuko Arni, Founder of Global Art Daily Agency, also said: “With the rise of the Internet, the landscape of artistry and authenticity has undergone significant transformations worldwide. Engineered to go viral, The Big Flat Now acts on the idea of creating art for public spaces in the UAE, especially shopping malls.”

Hayssam Hajjar, General Manager of Al-Futtaim Malls – UAE, added: “At Al-Futtaim Malls, we believe in transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary. Shōei Matsuda’s The Big Flat Now at Dubai Festival City Mall is a testament to our ongoing commitment to offer the best customer experience at our destinations. Embracing the universal language of emojis, we believe this unique art installation will add a touch of playfulness and joy, creating unforgettable moments for all our visitors as they embark on a truly captivating journey through the mall.”

Matsuda is known as a post-internet artist based in Tokyo. Through his installations, sculptures, prints and videos, Matsuda’s work explores themes centering around technology, social media and celebrity economies. He began his career in social media in 2010, garnering attention in Japan as an anonymous artist with an active Twitter newsfeed account.

After moving to Berlin in 2014, he became active with collaborative events, instructions, and performances, questioning subjectivity and authorship of the post-social media era and creating new communities by directly intervening in cities and society.

His work has been exhibited both in Japan and internationally, including in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic.

Some of his notable solo exhibitions include “The Laughing Man Store” at Shibuya PARCO, Tokyo, “Extreme Conceptual” at Eukaryote, Tokyo, and “Magic Number” at TOH, Tokyo. Shōei has also participated in group exhibitions such as “It knows: When Forms Become Mind” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan and “ATAMI ART GRANT” at Hotel ACAO in Atami, Japan.

In 2016, Matsuda received the Prix Ars Electronica Awards of Distinction and was selected for the ISEA Hong Kong. He has also co-authored works such as “A Field Guide to the Snowden Files” in Germany and “Cyberarts 2016” in Austria.