AI is Not Magic Exhibition Vol. 2:
How can AI expand human experience?

Commissioned by: Anthropic
Featuring: Ryuji Naoi, Eri Sumitomo
Produced by: Loftwork Inc.
With support from: FabCafe Global, Hida no Mori de Kuma wa Odoru Inc. (Hidakuma)

Based in Hida City, Gifu Prefecture, this project investigates how kigumi (木組), a traditional Japanese timber joinery technique passed down for centuries, can be preserved and evolved for future generations.

“How long should artisans preserve a craft that market demand no longer supports?”
–Ryuji Naoi, former carpenter

For generations, Hida carpenters have mastered kigumi, joining wood without nails or metal fasteners. While this heritage endures, practical applications for these skills are increasingly rare today.

Can AI bridge the gap between seasoned masters passing on the trade and new practitioners eager to learn?

Architect Eri Sumitomo seeks a modern purpose for traditional joinery. Collaborating with designer and former carpenter Ryuji Naoi, Sumitomo utilizes Claude to integrate ancestral woodworking knowledge into contemporary design workflows, discovering novel uses for irregular, non-standard timber.

The resulting installation, crafted by local artisans, exposes its internal joints to invite visitors to reflect on the future possibilities of kigumi.

TMPR (pronounced “tempura”)

The act of documenting urban life is shifting away from human observation. As autonomous transportation expands, vehicles become mobile cameras. Drones overhead and robotic sensors on the ground log geo-tagged footage continuously, digitizing the city into a vast database. As camera coverage becomes total, what uniquely human role remains in observing urban transformation?

Observing the same physical site, one person notes “a new parking lot,” while another sees “a neighborhood shop gone.” Beyond objective physical data lie subjective human memories. What people remember as absent is absent from digital footage. To explore memory and urban change, this project gathers personal accounts of what has vanished from the city landscape.

Chiba Institute of Technology, School of Design & Science (SDS)

APS II is a project studio where SDS students and Loftwork creators design and assemble quadruped robots equipped with AI agents. Built on Sesame, an open-source robotic platform by Dorian Todd, the project highlights the gap between digital plans and physical reality: while AI can generate code or schematics instantly, physical components like soldered circuits and 3D-printed frames require hands-on iteration. Participants engage in a tactile process of trial, construction, and refinement. At the exhibition, palm-sized robots perform a synchronized dance, prompting visitors to consider what they would create with physical AI.

Yasushi Sakai

Theological traditions have long debated whether supreme intelligence resides in a single centralized entity or emerges across a distributed network. Similar debates over centralization versus distribution persist in politics, economics, and technology. Judgment can either be centralized in a single authority or delegated to specialized peers across a network. This installation visualizes dynamic chains of decision-making and delegation in Large Language Models (LLMs) as learning progresses. Framing delegation—the act of seeking assistance and dividing labor—as a sophisticated form of scalable cognition, the piece illustrates a model of collective intelligence arising when individual systems rely on one another.

Shih Wei-Chieh

Solar Oracle Walkman is a sound installation integrating dye-sensitized solar cells, internet radio, and AI agents. The volume across six radio streams fluctuates based on real-time power generated by handmade solar panels, translating material variations into acoustic output. These micro-doses of solar energy are verified as decentralized green energy certificates, while two AI agents, one managing power allocation and the other managing audio playback, negotiate selection choices. Blending human craftsmanship, material physics, and AI negotiation, the installation explores resource distribution and artistic agency in the age of autonomous systems.

Philosophy School for Artificial Intelligence (Youichiro Miyake, Hiroshi Inukai)

This installation questions whether AI can evolve beyond rigid task execution toward greater autonomy. Game AI developer Youichiro Miyake presents an alternative framework for artificial intelligence, drawing on Eastern philosophical traditions such as Taoism and Buddhism, as well as psychoanalysis and ecology. By examining cognition from multiple perspectives, the exhibit redefines standard AI conventions and imagines more fluid, flexible forms of machine intelligence.