Shimpei Miura

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

What first drew you to reinterpreting ancient symbols like mandalas and the I Ching trigrams in your work?

In Japan, it is not uncommon to encounter symbols such as mandalas or the eight trigrams of the I Ching at temple fairs or cultural gatherings. These symbols represent a distinctly Eastern way of systematizing how humans perceive and make sense of the world. They embody a fusion of structure and visual art that continues to provide deep insights today. My own fascination with the diagrammatic forms of mandalas and trigrams is deeply connected to my background in information engineering, which I pursued through graduate school.

What draws me in is the act of visualizing structures and systems—mapping out the intricate interrelations between different elements and uncovering the hidden frameworks behind them. When logical refinement merges with poetic richness, I sense a unique interplay between thought and perception, intellect and sensation.

At the same time, in contemporary society, our perception itself is being reshaped by information overload and the rapid evolution of technology. In my artistic practice, I treat this transformation as a core question: how does technology alter our senses and bodily awareness, and how does that, in turn, affect our understanding of the world’s structures? In this regard, mandalas and trigrams—which inherently diagram ways of perceiving the world—serve as a natural reference point. By reinterpreting these ancient symbols through AI and visual programming, I am not simply pursuing an aesthetic exercise, but questioning the very frameworks of recognition they embody.

Applying contemporary technologies to these ancient motifs allows me to explore how we attempt to understand an ever more complex world. For me, this is not merely an experiment, but a process of challenging, dismantling, and reconstructing existing worldviews and epistemologies. Ultimately, my work seeks to discover new meaning at the intersections where technology and culture, vision and thought, and reality and the virtual converge.

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

How do you see the relationship between traditional spirituality and today’s digital or AI-driven visual culture?

I see traditional spirituality and today’s digital or AI-driven culture not as opposites, but as resonant counterparts. Mandalas and the hexagrams of the I Ching are symbols of how humans have long sought to understand the world. At the same time, AI and digital technologies allow us to visualize complex information and structures in new ways, expanding the scope of our perception.

For me, what matters is connecting these traditional symbols with contemporary technologies, layering past wisdom onto present-day challenges to explore new possibilities for perception and thought.

In this sense, the traditional and the contemporary are not in conflict. Rather, they resonate as two different yet complementary approaches to broadening human understanding.

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

Why did you choose the phenakistoscope—a 19th-century optical toy—as the central medium for this project?

With the explosive growth of AI-generated imagery, we are now surrounded by an overwhelming abundance of visual information. At the same time, I feel that the embodied experience of “seeing” itself is fading. Our active engagement—the pause to reflect on what we encounter, to discern its truth or falsehood—seems to be weakening in the flood of images.

The phenakistoscope, with its delicate interplay of light and rotation, can make an animation suddenly collapse into mere afterimages or disappear altogether. This instability compels us to become acutely aware of how our eyes and bodies form images and, ultimately, how we perceive the world.

In this sense, the phenakistoscope is not simply a 19th-century optical toy, but a device that renders the mechanisms of perception visible and restores a sense of physicality. In an age when AI and digital technologies are constantly expanding the frameworks of recognition, returning to this antiquated apparatus becomes, paradoxically, an act of reinterpreting the very origins of seeing.

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

What was the most challenging part of translating AI-generated video loops into a physical analog format?

For this project, I began by generating several one-second loop videos with AI, which I then layered and composited using video editing software. These were broken down into forty individual frames and arranged in a circular sequence to construct the phenakistoscope. The completed design was printed onto a vinyl record, placed on a turntable rotating at 33⅓ RPM, and filmed in live action.

There were two particularly challenging aspects of the process. The first was how to design the very method of converting looped video into a phenakistoscope format. To solve this, I devised a custom expression in After Effects that automatically arranged the specified number of frames evenly around the circle. The second challenge was balancing the “visual beauty” of the disc as a static object with the “smoothness of motion” when the disc was set into rotation.

For example, achieving fluid motion required at least 26 frames (24fps × 1.1 seconds ≈ 26). However, with only 26 frames, the static disc lacked sufficient visual density. After repeated experimentation, I ultimately settled on a 40-frame structure, filming it in live action on a turntable rotating at 45 RPM.

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

What role does physicality—the vinyl record, the rotation, the afterimage—play in your artistic vision?

The analog elements of my work—such as the rotation of the disc and the phenomenon of afterimage—play a crucial role as mechanisms for “restoring physicality.” The slight fluctuations and imperfections inherent in the turning record or the flickering images of the phenakistoscope become triggers that make viewers bodily aware of what it truly means to see.

In my practice, I often move back and forth like a pendulum between digital and analog: producing something digitally and then converting it into analog form, or reversing that process. Within this oscillation, the unique qualities and contradictions of each medium surface, opening up new spaces for visual experience.

While digital and AI technologies allow for infinitely precise and seamless expression, they also risk obscuring the processes of perception and sensation. This is why I deliberately work with analog rotation and afterimage: to present an “imperfect, visceral experience” mediated by vision, time, and the body, and to discover new meaning through the contrast with contemporary technologies.

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

Could you tell us about your collaboration with videographer Suho Kim and Human BeatBoxer KAIRI?

This work originally took shape in the process of developing a music video for KAIRI’s track Symbolism. While keeping my own artistic themes in mind, I set myself the challenge of expressing the world of the music solely through the animation of the phenakistoscope. For the live-action shoot, I collaborated with videographer Suho Kim, experimenting with shutter speed adjustments and other techniques to find the optimal form.

Together with Suho Kim and human beatboxer KAIRI, I am part of the Tokyo-based artist collective ARTIFACT. The collective consists of seven members, including a graphic designer, an ikebana artist, and others from diverse fields. By bringing our different sensibilities into dialogue, sometimes even in collision, we explore the possibilities of experimental expression.

Shimpei Miura | Symbolism | 2025

What do you hope viewers reflect upon when encountering your work—both conceptually and physically?

What I hope viewers take away from my work is a fundamental question: How do we perceive the world? By layering ancient symbols such as mandalas and the I Ching trigrams with contemporary technology, I seek to unsettle the visual and informational frameworks we so often take for granted.

On a conceptual level, I want my work to create a moment of pause—a chance to look again at our complex world and reflect on the hidden orders and connections within it. On a physical level, through analog phenomena such as afterimages of light, the flicker of rotation, and the synchronization of sound and image, I invite viewers to become acutely aware of what it means to see, and of how they experience the world through their own bodies.

In this sense, my work is not meant to leave the viewer in a passive state, but to function as a space where thought and sensation move back and forth, enabling a rediscovery of one’s own perception and presence.