EMI KUSANO - Techno-Animism: Children's Guardian - Kamikakushi Summer 96 II

Technique: Promptography on Hahnemühle Fine Art paper
Image size: 48 x 27 cm
Edition: 5 + 1 AP
Year: 2023

With Kamikakushi Summer 96 II, Emi Kusano opens the techno-animistic narrative toward collective memory. Instead of a single heroine, three children take center stage: They stand in a sparse forest, surrounded by lush greenery, engrossed in a game that simultaneously possesses a ritualistic quality. One holds a traditional spinning top, the other adorns her hair with flowers—gestures reminiscent of archaic children's games yet simultaneously borne of innocent seriousness.

In the background, a friendly-looking robot with a round face, mint-green body, and gentle smile appears. It seems like a companion from a parallel world: not an overpowering guardian, but a quiet friend whose presence naturally surrounds the children. The symbiosis between nature and technology is particularly palpable here: moss and machines seem to blend organically into one another, as if forest and robot were formed from the same substance.

With "Kamikakushi"—the motif of mystical disappearance—Kusano evokes the possibility that this scene is both dream and reality. The year "96" bridges the gap to a generation that grew up in a transitional period: between an analog childhood in the forest and a digital childhood in front of screens.

The work thus becomes an allegory of an innocent negotiation of the future: The children represent a community that recognizes the robot not as an alien object, but as a friend. Technology appears here not as a threat, but as an extension of play, imagination, and childhood rituals. Kusano shows how a techno-animistic attitude can unfold even in the earliest moments of togetherness—an image of hope that spirituality, technology, and nature need not be opposites, but rather part of a shared, lived reality.