Taketo Muroi - Afterimage 9

Technique: Promptography on Hahnemühle Fine Art paper
Image size: 45 x 30 cm
Edition: 3 + 1 AP
Year: 2025

Afterimage 9

Afterimage 9 condenses the central motifs of the series in a particularly quiet, almost contemplative way. The two-part image structure is clearly recognizable and here functions less as a confrontation than as a temporal shift of one and the same place. Both halves of the image show a reflective water surface in which trees and sky are refracted – but in different states of light, color, and perception.

The left side appears muted, almost empty. The reflection is dull, gray, and slightly blurred. The tree trunk acts like a dark axis, cutting vertically through the image and stabilizing the space, almost like a meditative pole. This half of the image evokes a state of retreat, of pausing—a landscape that is less seen than remembered.

In contrast, the right half of the image presents an intensified perception of the same motif. Color emerges: shades of green, blue, and violet permeate the water's surface; reflections of light seem to move, as if the image itself were in transition. The reflection here is not clearer, but more vibrant—it shimmers, shifts, and dissolves fixed contours.

In the logic of Japanese animism, this duality can be interpreted as different states of the same animate landscape. Water, trees, and light do not possess a fixed essence, but rather change their appearance depending on the viewer's perspective, time, and inner state. The landscape is not an object, but a co-actor – it responds to perception.

From a Zen Buddhist perspective, Afterimage 9 explores the relationship between emptiness and fullness. The left side approaches the state of mu – intentionless openness – while the right side depicts an excess of information, color, and movement that nevertheless does not lead to clarity. Both states are of equal value; meaning arises not from intensity, but from attention.

The work offers a critical perspective on our current visual culture, in which the same reality appears radically different depending on the filter, algorithm, or context. Afterimage 9 doesn't show a before and after, but rather a juxtaposition of competing realities. For Taketo Muroi , this afterimage isn't a flaw in perception, but its very truth: perception is always unstable, relational – and never complete.