#shimame

[panic-is-trying]

No one will ever understand them

Or me for that matter this is ship is crazy

[salopetto]

I've been interested in tetrapods, these cool looking, geometric, concrete structures meant to protect against natural disaster that border huge swaths of Japan's coasts, since I read a "interview" with an animate one in Cabinet Magazine. But I saw them for the first time in real life on the Oki Islands in Shimane prefecture. They're chubby and kind of cute (like My Little Pony legs) and fit together in that soothing way and look natural for a second right before they look completely unnatural. 

Their practicality is highly disputed and many think they could be inflicting more ecological damage than benefit; their production has become a huge industry in Japan.  

Though the threats are different, creating an economy based on exploiting people's fears of destruction is a worldwide phenomenon, very familiar to anyone in New York whose had to show a security guard two kinds of ID and go through metal detectors to get into an office building.

Also pictured are some tetrapod erasers from the 100 Yen store. 

Articles about tetrapods:

https://freeassociationdesign.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/tetrapods-entropy-and-excess/

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/07/22/to-be-sorted/tetrapods/#.VNbb2mTLceE