嘘かマコトかと細かそう

Mika KAN has explored the boundary between the human and the non-human through dolls, photography, and video. At the VOCA Exhibition 2020 and her 2021 solo show Imaginary Lie at Shiseido Gallery, she created self-portraits with a doll cast from her own head, giving form to the existence of a clone-like double.

This exhibition presents two new works: a generative documentary video, Interview by the Gaslighter, and a new doll photography series, Sympoietic Doubles. In the video work, an AI trained to trace the linguistic patterns of a domineering personality interviews KAN about her ten years of artistic practice through one hundred questions. Using techniques specified in its prompt, the AI imposes interpretations that diverge from her actual intentions, and KAN continues to respond while being shaped by these distortions. The recorded dialogue is then segmented and recombined into a different configuration with each playback. The composition shifts in response to the number of viewers present, gradually unravelling the narrative.

The photographic series Sympoietic Doubles is the latest addition to I Won’t Let You Go, an ongoing project begun in 2019. At the age of 29, KAN had a doll made from a cast of her own face, and has since photographed herself together with this exact likeness. In this new chapter, threads and knitting become the central motif: a single fabric woven from different yarns can always be unravelled back into separate strands. The two figures finger-knit together, or wear crocheted garments that drape across both bodies, alternately blurring and unbinding the boundary between them.

The Japanese title “Uso ka Makoto ka to Komakasō” is a palindrome — it reads the same forwards and backwards. This structure mirrors the relationship between lies and truth that lies at the heart of the work. The phrase also carries a second, dismissive sense: “Don’t get hung up on petty details about what is a lie and what is true” — the kind of remark used to silence those who insist on distinguishing them. KAN’s essay series “Yoji no Kanojo” (Her at Four O’Clock), serialised over three and a half years from 2021, and her earlier Imaginary Lie were both palindromes as well. Moving across text, photography, and generative video, KAN’s ongoing inquiry into the ceaselessly produced boundary between truth and fiction enters a new phase.

During the exhibition period, an empirical study will also be conducted as part of a JSPS KAKENHI Early-Career Research grant: “Distinguishing Analogous Representations through Eye-Tracking Analysis of Doll Photography Viewing.”