Stranger

Ikebukuro Art Gathering 2024 Mangiri encourage award
Artwork size / w400×h2000mm

Hanging scroll size / w500×h2200mm

I traced back my past on the internet and randomly depicted words that I have no memory of. Although I don’t remember, the internet holds vivid records. While I think of myself as an unchanged version of me, I can no longer recognize the person I once was as myself.

This work is a self-portrait of me, who feels like a stranger.

For this piece, I selected images I didn't use from over ten thousand AI-generated illustrations I created for manga production, and hand-traced them. The onomatopoeia, used as sound effects, was also traced from AI-generated outputs.

As of 2024, AI-generated images do not have copyright, so there should be no issue in tracing and using them. However, the ongoing debate continues about how much creativity in AI illustrations should be acknowledged.