Description: A bird wanders through the forest, continuing to search for precious memories. Before long, it gets lost in a mysterious world inside a tree hollow. There, it finds a strangely shaped dead tree. On that tree, the bird begins fishing toward the sky, trying to catch a star where memories sleep. Using its own feathers as bait... The finite body, and the world of memories and imagination, invisible to the eye yet holding infinitely expanding possibilities. Which, after all, is more important? The work is expressed through special stop-motion techniques, including puppetry, flat sand art, and casting paint shadows onto washi paper. Production began independently in 2016. After editing, it was completed in 2025.

A ensō appears in the space, and the body steps into that ensō. In the space, circles are drawn and swarms of butterflies fly about. When you touch a butterfly, it dies and falls. When you enter those circles or swarms of butterflies, an entirely different world unfolds inside. Ensō, one of the forms of calligraphy and painting in Zen—a circle drawn with a single brushstroke—was traditionally created by drawing a circular form in the air with a staff or similar object. It is said to symbolically express enlightenment and truth, the universe as a whole, and equality. It is also a circle that reflects the mind of the viewer, and its interpretation is left to the viewer. "teamLab & TikTok, teamLab Reconnect: Art and Sauna" (Keyakizaka-shita, Tokyo) Exhibition details: https://reconnect.teamlab.art/jp Work details: https://www.teamlab.art/jp/w/stepinto_lightcircles/

This film is adapted from “Muō no Rigyo” from “Ugetsu Monogatari” by Akinari Ueda, a magical realist tale written in Japan’s Edo period, also known as the source story for “Ugetsu,” the film by Kenji Mizoguchi. I paradoxically emphasized the subtle “kai’i (怪異)”—a Japanese word indicating something mysterious, strange, eerie, and sometimes dangerous—by reconstructing the storyline to make it rational and interpretable. I used photogrammetry to obtain its distinctive bumpy texture and create the strange scenery of a dream. By adapting the story of “Muō no Rigyo,” one of the tales in Ueda Akinari’s “Ugetsu Monogatari,” and using photogrammetry to render it as a 3D animation, I created this work. By extensively altering the uncanny tale of irrational events so that it could be interpreted as rationally as possible, I attempted to paradoxically present the remnants of contemporary mystery that still could not be fully filtered out. In addition, by using 3D models with distinctive textures obtained through photogrammetry, a somewhat imperfect technique that is weak in handling reflections, transparency, and motion, I attempted to create an eerie, dreamlike scene. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We aimed to create a work that pursued “coolness.” By drastically reducing the amount of color and unifying the overall visual look, then increasing the volume of color information during the chorus to excite the viewer, the piece also carries a somewhat satirical view of society: that this kind of “coolness” may in fact be a “violence of information overload.” It is also a work in which I confronted something fundamental at the root of my own creative practice. I also believe that by ignoring readability in the graphic elements, I was able to push the true potential of the designer to the limit.