As you enter this room, you will be greeted by an expansive phenakistoscope. This is a traditional animation technique which projects the painting on a disk by reflecting it off of a mirror. This reflection is projected through a small opening and rotated at high speeds causing the painting to appear as if it’s moving. After turning on the light and flipping the switch to turn on the device, the phenakistoscope will start to move. As the Kyoto landscape continues to fly across the panel, the lights of the city appear to light up and dim, a fantastical capital cityscape suspended in time.

There is a Buddhist word called “Engi,” or origin. The artist of this piece Akiyoshi Mishima believes this word includes the connotation that “in our worlds, which exist in tandem with one another, there is a boundary and door between oneself and the spiritual world.” He describes the “origin” phenomenon as something which allows us to uncover the contact point between us humans and the world. As you form a connection between yourself and this new world, this boundary marks the start of something new. What kind of experiences are waiting for you? The artist himself unravels the mystery for us.

----Would you please introduce yourself?

My name is Akiyoshi Mishima and I am an artist. In terms of my career, I’m based in Nara now, but I just moved there 3 years ago. I’m from the Kansai region, but I lived and worked in the Tokyo area for about 20 years. I was about 20 in the early 2000s when I started working there. I worked for a gallery called NANZUKA. Nowadays, the urban development in Shibuya has completely changed the area, but Shibuya was once the center of underground culture. The underpasses would be covered in graffiti, and there would be parties all the time. That is the Tokyo I knew. For almost 20 years, I created various artworks doing work with graphic design, videography, fashion brands, and of course, artwork in the city.

---There are many ways to approach a new piece, Can you explain this piece and its theme of “boundaries”?

I was pretty torn and ended up redoing the concept over and over again, but this is the end result. The first part was determining which side would have the phenakistoscope and which side wouldn’t.

---You mean which side of the room would have the phenakistoscope and which side of the room would have the bed right?

How would the phenakistoscope encircle the space? I’d been thinking about time, but if I were to put it into words, I would say it's similar to Dragonball’s “Hyperbolic Time Chamber.” The room where one day becomes one year. The time axis in this room is impossible in real life, but also feels like it actually could exist...or at least I’d like to think it could.

With craftsmanship, or with anything for that matter, you can’t guarantee a good product by spending more time on it, and if you don’t spend time on it, you can’t do anything at all. In order to make this room feel like the “Hyperbolic Time Chamber,” it had to be white. I wanted to make sure there were no sharp corners, so I made all the corners in the room round. The horizontal line on the other side of the disk was meant to break up the white and show there was more depth than just that. The black circle in the middle is like a ravine or the sun.

By sleeping in the bed which rests in the middle of the room between the phenakistoscope and the white wall, you truly come face to face with yourself. It’s not like Zazen or Yoga, it's like defining a place for yourself, building a space for yourself. As you sit in this space and face the rotating landscape, you also face the self that is watching as well. It’s as if you are actually watching yourself. That is why I titled the piece “MY ROOM.” It’s a pretty corny title, but I really struggled with it…

---Lastly, we would like you to tell us your message for the guests staying here.

First, I would like to thank you for staying here. As I said earlier, there isn’t one way to define this piece. Of course, there is meaning behind some decisions and no meaning behind others. There is a lot to the room itself as well. But, rather than focusing on one graphic, rather than focusing just on one space, If this place can help this person come to realize that they have surpassed the boundaries between themselves and Kyoto, themselves and Japan, then I feel like I have done my part. I don’t want to lecture someone or make them do a certain thing. As an artist, I’d be thankful if people are able to truly reflect on their own hearts and spirits in this space.