This work was created at the end of 2023. It is a series of photo collages, which started in 2021, is based on Ryo´s diverse queer experiences as a transgender and asexual individual. It combines photography, drawing, art printing, and partial machine learning methods.
Can you share more about your diverse queer experiences that inspired "Denoise Body Experiments"? How did your journey as a transgender and asexual individual shape this series?
Ryo Kajitani: In my submitted text, I used the term "transgender." However, upon deeper reflection of my experiences, I have come to recognize that "non-binary" more accurately describes me.
Therefore, I will identify myself as a non-binary, asexual individual.
This journey has been particularly challenging in Tokyo. Here, the very concept of a visible queer community often feels elusive, almost intangible. Finding one's place within this nebulous urban space is akin to navigating through a mist—the destination exists, but the path is rarely clear or straightforward.
This sense of searching for connection in a society where such connections are not readily apparent has infused my work with a quality of isolation that is perhaps uniquely shaped by urban spaces such as Tokyo.
I have valued living in a way that neither asserts myself nor causes trouble to society.
This project began abruptly, triggered by phantom pain stemming from past experiences of violence. When these memories resurfaced, it wasn't the physical pain that was most distressing for me.
Pain was my homeland, not something to fear. This realization now underpins my current work, navigating the complexities of societal structures, both visible and invisible, on the streets.
What was truly painful was becoming aware of my bodily experiences and existence—something I had unconsciously erased at this stage. This was a confrontation with another "self" that I had discarded. Despite my consistent silence, my body began to scream out independently. At that point, I felt I could no longer run away or hide. I was faced with two choices: to further widen the old wound myself or to sublimate it into artistic creation. Although I had already retired as a model by then, I saw this as an opportunity to accept and understand my body as it was, and I began shooting and production in 2021.
Your series combines various mediums such as photography, drawing, art printing, and machine learning methods. Can you walk us through your creative process for "Denoise Body Experiments"? What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?
Ryo Kajitani: The creator, a queer artist whose life has been shaped by experiences of violence, developed an early habit of photographing injured areas and documenting memories. Before the advent of smartphones, he meticulously archived these moments on a flip phone, preserving images and on-site records. This work breathes new life into those aged documentary photographs, recontextualizing them within a contemporary framework.
When he obtained his doctoral degree in 2019, he worked as an image-processing operator, primarily in design, handling numerous image-processing tasks daily. At that time, the industry was abuzz with the remarkable development of the Diffusion Process, initiated by Jascha Sohl-Dickstein and others, as well as the rapid democratization of image processing. At the end of 2021, prompted by an experience of phantom pain, he began preparing to restore the accumulated record photos and studying the process of "editing."
In this artwork, 'editing' serves as a technical metaphor for somatic excavation, in the sense of reintegrating fragmented experiences and memories within a local dataset space (i.e., a personal data repository within the data's feature space). In this sense, the work would not have been possible without such technological development and its open-minded democratization.
In Denoise Body Experiments, he starts with photography and then utilizes latent diffusion models, several image processing filters (.py scripts), and Photoshop. The clothing is based on what the model typically wears.
In the reverse diffusion process (reverse SDE: Stochastic Differential Equation, dx = [f(x,t) - g²(t)∇x log pt(x)]dt + g(t)dw), one of the theoretical frameworks of diffusion models, the model paradoxically learns generation methods by gradually destroying data. This process starts from a state of complete noise and gradually reconstructs the original signal while extracting the structure. The generated data reflects results sampled based on probability distributions.
For this work, he constructed a local dataset comprising approximately 1,000 personal record photographs, which served as training data for the latent diffusion model. The model was implemented using a standard PyTorch framework, employing a U-Net architecture-based environment (a neural network designed to estimate either the mean μθ or the noise ϵθ of the diffusion process). For image processing, he created batch processing filters mainly using OpenCV, performing color control, blur, and sharpness processing, among others.*2NumPy was used to optimize computational processing. He consistently used a command-line interface (CLI) at all stages, practicing impromptu creative coding. This process, though neither efficient nor refined, was akin to writing poetry, capturing creative moments similar to the experience of turning over a freshly printed sheet from a woodcut. Pushing forward on this obscure and challenging path was essential to the creative process.
After these processes complete the photographic base, it is printed as a giclée print. Finally, it is finished by hand coloring (using dye ink) and drawing before framing. The local dataset is discarded after production.
References: Note 1:[1] Sohl-Dickstein, J., Weiss, E. A., Maheswaranathan, N., & Ganguli, S. (2015). Deep unsupervised learning using nonequilibrium thermodynamics. International Conference on Machine Learning.
[2] Song, Y., Sohl-Dickstein, J., Kingma, D. P., Kumar, A., Ermon, S., & Poole, B. (2021). Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations. ICLR. Both references retrieved from Google Scholar, August 11, 2024.
Note 2:To visualize progress, the tqdm library was utilized to track the waiting time during filter processing in the .py script.
How did you integrate partial machine learning methods into your artwork? What specific features of this technology were crucial in achieving the unique style of "Denoise Body Experiments"?
Ryo Kajitani: The "generation through destruction" mentioned above was essential for "editing" the body transformed by injury. This process initially involved a crude therapeutic method of dissection rather than a reconstruction of the post-injury body. The inseparable connection between destruction and creation links the creative approach to the engineering method. Just as the diffusion model extracts meaningful structures from noise according to probability distributions, this work creates a new wholeness from the fragmented body after injury. Such "editing" was almost impossible in the physical space in which we live.
As a technical metaphor, the layering and fragmentation of images using latent diffusion models and other techniques correspond to the creator's attitude of "casting the body into latent space as a single grain of noise. "This method enabled the integration of multiple temporal states into a single visual plane and allowed them to be "edited" in digital space. In this way, the creator's sensibility and engineering methods work in harmony without conflict.
The themes of identity and queer experiences are central to your work. How did you ensure that these themes were effectively communicated through your photo collages?
Ryo Kajitani: I have never consciously incorporated my identity into my creative work. The initial focus of this series was to calmly accept violence as a phenomenon and sublimate it into creation with an open-hearted approach. A consistent theme in my work has been to express and document the state of my body after injury and its ongoing transformation, utilizing various traditional and contemporary methodologies.
In this context, I am neither a "victim" nor a modern "protagonist," but rather consistently a creator, merely a particle of social noise. I feel that "identity" naturally seeps into the work, like a stain or rust. Therefore, I allow the work to express such themes organically, without deliberate imposition.
Regarding my own queer experiences and upbringing, I currently perceive them only as a "difference" or "discrepancy." In that regard, my understanding remains quite rudimentary. For example, despite my efforts, I have been unable to develop habits of love. Developing affection for someone and having it evolve into romantic love and sexual desire is something I can only imagine. In this sense, romantic love and sexual desire are almost fictional narratives to me, while violence feels much more tangible. Indeed, there is a peculiar inversion here. It is not a source of conflict with heteronormativity but rather a form of respect.
I suspect these elements, perhaps unknown even to myself, are likely inscribed in my work as some form of discrepancy.
Can you share any details about your upcoming projects? Are you planning to explore similar themes or use new technologies in your future works?
Ryo Kajitani: This project, which began at the end of 2021, is still in its early stages in terms of both sensibility and technique. I plan to continue refining it further, connecting it to domestic and international exhibitions and collaborations, and potentially exploring intersections with other fields. It is likely to become a continuous project spanning over a decade, evolving alongside technological advancements.
In the future, I hope to create short video works based on still images that incorporate movement, and to further explore themes of photo-collage and computational photography.
Finally, what message or takeaway do you hope audiences will gain from "Denoise Body Experiments"? How do you want this artwork to impact their perspective on queer identities and experiences?
Ryo Kajitani: In Denoise Body Experiments, we perceive identity as something that naturally emerges as a byproduct of experience. The model’s body in this series is my own, yet I have always viewed myself with a sense of otherness. Observing the body’s transformation through collage is a way of reliving this otherness. What exists here is both a private body and a shared “body,” where viewers can find aspects of themselves within the artwork.
Violence is the intrusion of “the power of others” deep into the body. More precisely, I believe that living while accepting this pain has become an essential foundation of my identity. Over time, the pain accumulated in this body has ceased to be unpleasant. For me, violence is no longer an object of fear. At some point, my body became a reservoir of energy, where pain accumulates as a social force.
Artists, viewers, and people from diverse backgrounds can project their fears, desires, and dreams onto this work.
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