To Hidetaka Suzuki Solo Exhibition "Bird and Mirror"
This exhibition starts from two stories. One is a rakugo story about amirror named Matsuyama Kagami, and another is a story about
fictional bird created by generative AI.
Through these stories, I thought about the fictionalization of reality,or the actualization of fiction. It could be said it is to eliminate theboundary between reality and fiction.
I have been approaching the question of what exactly I am seeing
between the different mediums of painting and images, and now I
would like to try it from a new perspective.

A Village Without Mirrors１
Matsuyama refers to the area around present-day Tokamachi City,
Niigata Prefecture. The original stor y 2 is said to be a Buddhist
scripture compiled from ancient Indian folk tales.
The synopsis is as follows. A man is rewarded for his filial piety by theauthorities, who offer to grant him whatever he wishes. The man asks
to see his father, who died 18 years ago. This was impossible, even fora government official. However, hearing that his father and the man
are identical, the official shows the man a mirror. The man, who had
never seen a mirror before, thought that his father's face was really
there and was very happy.
The man brings the mirror back to his village, but his wife discovers
the mirror. This is a funny story in which all the villagers have neverseen a mirror, leading to a big misunderstanding.
The story is simple enough. A man who has never looked in a mirror isunable to recognize his own reflection in the mirror. However, thestory is a bit more complex.
The protagonist recognizes the man in the mirror not as himself butas his father. At the same time, however, he understands that hisfather is no longer in this world. He understands that the man in themirror is not of this world, but confronts him as a real image withwhom he can communicate.
In other words, in this story, the mirror functions as a tool blurring
the boundary between the imaginary and the real.
The man exposes his feelings to a figure in which the falsehood andrea lit y a re blurred. He ca n no longer see his fat her in rea lit y.
Therefore, the mirror reflecting the ambiguous image would show
him what he wanted to see.

biscuit galler y
September 14th, 2023 - October 14th

However, bird lovers who discovered the photo claimed that it was afabricated photograph and a controversy erupted.
They have left primary information behind. They have argued eachother with fictional legitimacy from beginning to end.
A s d iscu ssed on Toget ter, t his is not limited to A I-generated
programs. The smartphone cameras we use in our daily lives also
automatically process images, and the photographic medium is not atool for capturing the truth.
Given this, we may be looking at a large number of imagery that is
made up and does not exist every day.

What can be captured in a photograph, what can be depicted
in a painting
When I was in junior high school, cell phones were equipped withcameras for the first time, back when softbank was still J-PHONE.
Sunsets were beautiful in my hometown, and on a clear day, I could
literally see the blazing sunset. I was given a cell phone with a camera
and wanted to capture the sunset somehow.
However, the color of the sunset in the photograph was completelydifferent from the color I saw with my own eyes. Of course, this was
not surprising considering the camera's performance, but at the time I
could not understand why.
On the other hand, I had seen Monet's sunset painting around thesa me time. There I felt the sunset I saw with my own eyes wasreproduced. I still remember feeling the light, temperature, andhumidity there.
Looking back, I realize my interest in painting was, in the first place,in relation to images. Sometimes I feel a sense of reality from a
painting as a collection of touches, and at other times a photographcapturing reality looks completely fictitious.
I remember this experience when I think about what painting means
to me.
I want to address this ambiguity, this lack of boundaries. It is theidentity of what I could not photograph, and it is also my motive forpainting.

Hidetaka Suzuki

Fictional Bird３
A photo of a bird on Twitter became the topic of conversation. The
reason why was because it showed a bird not existing in the world.
Th e p h o t o g r a p h e r c l a i m e d h e t o o k t h e p h o t o h i m s e l f, b u t
bird-watching experts could only assume the photo was obviously
manipulated in some way.
As it turns out, this photo was an AI-generated image, but the reason
for the uproar is interesting.
The photographer used an A I-based image quality improvement
application to improve the blurriness, out-of-focus, and image qualityof the photo. However, this service re-generated the image itself toimprove image quality, creating a completely different image in thefirst place. The photographer was not an expert on birds, nor did heunderstand how the app worked. He created a fictional bird that did
not exist without any malicious intent.

1. Matsuyama Mirror Over view - R akugo stroll 164(http://sakamitisanpo.g.dgdg.jp/matuyamakagami.html)◦K atsura Bunraku / Matsuyama K agami - Youtube(https://w w w.youtube.com/watch?v=B5nhSyH_w1g)

2. The Hyakyu-kyo Sutra, Book 35, "The Parable of the Mirror of Hokyo
3. A tragedy that occurred when A I's image correction technolog y was too
advanced, creating a creature that did not exist there - Togetter(https://togetter.com/li/2138195)

Please read the QR code to see the links to the above reference
UR Ls.