Wataru Okada Rochester Institute of Technology Okada came in the United States in pursuit of profound education in the visual arts and photography. He started his artistic career as a photographer while he was a chemistry student in a science school in Tokyo. Inspired by an extensive education in bio-chemistry, his early work focused on nature and humans. For the last two years, Okada has been working on the idea of “commodity happiness” in relation to alternative perception. The concept of his work is very similar to that of Simulationism, which came to be recognized in the mid-80s. The artists of Simulationism do not disdain Kitsch taste, but rather celebrate it. Simulationists choose to accept the conditions of “simulacra” in this post-industrial culture. In his thesis project, Okada attempts to extend the idea of “simulation” in relation to elusive happiness as an available commodity.