WORKS

Prescription for the Future is an exploration of new possibilities in medicine: awakening the imagination that lies within us through the power of art, and connecting it with the capacity for physical and mental recovery and healing.

The human brain responds not only to real experiences but also to vividly imagined ones. Think, for example, of an umeboshi, a sour pickled plum. Saliva begins to fill your mouth. You have neither eaten nor seen a plum; you have only imagined one. Yet your body responds. Could this power be put to use in medicine? Prescription for the Future seeks to draw out the capacity of people to heal themselves through imagination. What is prescribed is not medicine, but imagination. And on that prescription is written: Art. Toward a day when art is prescribed in Japanese healthcare. Welcome to the hospital of the future.

Ancient people created pictographic characters by translating the movement of living creatures and the changing forms of nature into still, symbolic shapes. For more than 3,000 years, life has been held within those characters. Through contemporary technology, Sisyu releases it once again. When visitors touch the pictographs in her media art, the creatures and natural phenomena residing within them begin to move, creating new life and landscapes in digital space. Nature is neither something to fear nor something to dominate. Human beings, too, are part of nature: all things interact, influence one another, and live together. Returning to the origins of writing, these works use cutting-edge technology to question the fundamental relationship between people and nature. The union of traditional culture and technology illuminates that connection and offers a light toward a richer future.