三宅章介

MIYAKE Akiyoshi

In the mid-19th century, shortly after photography was invented, there was a European custom known as "postmortem photography," in which photographs of the deceased were taken to make them appear as if they were still alive.
Today, it is even possible to communicate with the deceased using AI, but an unavoidable sense of resistance remains.
So instead of a person, I photographed a cicada shell and fed it into AI.
From the shell, a vestige of life, the AI ​​created an astonishing creature.
It was an "Utsusemi," an empty shell, bizarre in appearance, like an Ultraman monster, yet possessing a certain majestic beauty.
I decided to create 100 of these empty shell and include them in an illustrated encyclopedia, along with explanatory text created by the AI.
Through this compilation, I realized an ironic fact.
The air shells never die, but are accumulated in the cloud, repeating and multiplying as new learning resources, continuing to consume the Earth's limited resources.
But despite being the one who initiated their creation, I do not have the authority to put an end to them.