“GOOD FOR HEALTH”

This is the concept of my exhibition.

It is the text imprinted on the back of Kaneda’s vibrant red jacket in “AKIRA,” a proudly Japanese manga. The Reinforced Skeleton series draws inspiration from the cyborgification depicted in “Ghost in the Shell,” which greatly influenced me. While numerous other works have impacted my artistic journey, I sense that the time has come to sublimate and give them form in my unique way. The timing aligns perfectly, with ample input and a reasonable timeframe to create this collection. I can finally begin now.

Why was the right amount of time necessary?

As I grow older, my sensitivity to perceiving things in a multidimensional manner and my intellectual curiosity have accelerated. In my youth, for better or worse, I sought violence and destructive impulses in my work, overconfident in myself and neglecting broader influences. Had I used bones as a motif during those formative years, my works would have been more aggressive, grotesque, and lacking a clear theme. While such an outcome holds its appeal, the Reinforced Skeleton series should transcend that. As the author, I believe the series must encompass a question about the future of humankind.

What is that question?

First and foremost, a “healthy body” stands as an ideal desired by all human beings, regardless of wealth or status. The title of this exhibition also signifies this aspiration.

Moreover, it is fitting to anticipate significant advancements in medical cloning technology in the future. Science has rewritten the domain once attributed to ancient gods and now reigns as the new deity capable of myth-like human creation. However, alongside the rising expectations for this forbidden power, there exists an ethical barrier that must not be breached.

What is the ethical barrier in question?

Opinions on this matter vary, encompassing personal rights, discrimination, breeding, and human dignity, among others. Nevertheless, deep down, there exists consideration for the “Creator God” who has long governed humanity’s values. I believe a profound awareness of the power to create human beings, once exclusive to ancient deities, being entrusted to the new god of science, acts as a significant restraint. The immense progress of science has the potential to shatter the path that humanity has long believed in and followed, and this resistance emerges as a consequence.

If we are unable to summon cloning technology to our aid, how about crossing to the other side ourselves and assimilating the fruits of science? Wouldn’t that overcome the ethical hurdle? “Cyborgification” stands as one of the keys to this possibility.

We can already create artificial parts using inorganic materials, a technology currently employed in the medical field. When these increasingly precise components are combined and integrated with a sufficiently advanced AI capable of human-like behavior, does their existence become an ethical transgression, similar to human cloning? Where lies the boundary between the two? To what extent can we consider someone human when their body parts are replaced?

These themes also hold great importance in “Ghost in the Shell.”

Motoko Kusanagi, the protagonist, has replaced everything but her “brain” with a prosthetic body. She values her sensitivity and spirit, referred to as her “ghost,” as proof of her humanity. Yet, she worries that even her brain may be artificial, a machine with a programmed personality. The story does not resolve Motoko’s fears, concluding when she merges with a contradictory entity—a puppeteer born in the vastness of the internet, a “life form without substance”—abandoning her entire body, including her brain. Although subsequent stories continue, the first volume strongly emphasizes “what is life.”

Afterward, Motoko can interact with the real world through her prosthetic body, and there are no limitations on the shape or type of body she can assume. The concept suggests the ability to change bodies as easily as changing clothes. At this stage, Motoko feels sufficiently human to me.

While cloning technology remains controversial, this serves as an experimental exploration of an alternate approach—a step in my expressive quest to find my own answer to the question of how humanity should evolve in the future. What will I feel a decade from now when I look upon my works and the real world? My interest remains boundless.

TERU