Group Exhibition ”Soft Archaeologies of the Future” @ CADAN Otemachi
11/25 (Tue.) - 12/13 (Sut.), 2025
Exhibiting Artists: Yuma Kishi, Ryoko Kumakura, Kenta CobayashiI, Naoya Hirata
Venue : CADAN OTEMACHI (1F, Zenbincho Building, 2-6-3 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan)
Opening Reception : 11/25 (Tue.) 6-8pm
*We are open on Tue.-Sat. 12pm-7pm / Final day: 12pm-5pm
*Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and public holidays
Curated by Satoko Oe Contemporary(Tokyo) and WAITINGROOM(Tokyo)
Cooperation: √K Contemporary
Kenta COBAYASHI, "Tokyo Debris and flowers"
2025
lenticular, steel, 750 × 500 × 45 mm Ed.3 (A.P.1)
/1
Kenta COBAYASHI, "Purple and Yellow Stroke"
2022
inkjet print, aluminum, 410 x 510 x 610 mm
/1
Kenta COBAYASHI, "Blue Stroke"
2022
Inkjet print, aluminum, 500 x 350 x 270 mm
/2
Yuma KISHI, "The Brides (divided and rebuilt)"
2020
Two-channel video with mono sound, color, loop
/1
Yuma KISHI, "Untitled (Portrait With Oracle Bones)"
2024
Plaster, paper clay, AI-generated data, epoxy resin, d35 × w135 × h30 mm
/1
Yuma KISHI, "Untitled (Portrait With Oracle Bones)"
2024
Plaster, paper clay, AI-generated data, epoxy resin, d50 × w150 × h40 mm
/1
Yuma KISHI, "Untitled (Portrait With Oracle Bones)"
2024
Plaster, paper clay, AI-generated data, epoxy resin, d50 × w155 × h37 mm
/1
Yuma KISHI, "Untitled (Portrait With Oracle Bones)"
2024
Plaster, paper clay, AI-generated data, epoxy resin, d23 × w152 × h23 mm
/1
Yuma KISHI, "Untitled (Portrait With Oracle Bones)"
2024
Plaster, paper clay, AI-generated data, epoxy resin, d50 × w145 × h37 mm
/1
Yuma KISHI, "Untitled (Portrait With Oracle Bones)"
2024
Plaster, paper clay, AI-generated data, epoxy resin, d52 × w145 × h35 mm
Press release
At CADAN Otemachi, from Tuesday, November 25 to Saturday, December 13, 2025, Satoko Oe Contemporary and WAITINGROOM will present the group exhibition
“Soft Archaeologies of the Future”
(Supported by √K Contemporary).
We are now living in an era where “machines” of technology and human elements—such as the body, perception, and memory—are intertwined more complexly than ever. The screens and networks we interact with daily continuously generate new “artifacts” and “traces”, traversing recording and forgetting, past and future. In this context, layers of technology that might seem rigid merge with the softness of human perception, giving rise to new modes of observation—what might be called a future archaeology.
In this exhibition, four artists—Hiroma Kishi, Kenta Cobayashi, Naoya Hirata, and Ryoko Kumakura—explore the “layers” of technology and imagery through their respective perspectives and techniques, bringing to light subtle fragments that exist between information, the body, vision, and memory.
Their works inhabit a space where the coldness of the digital intersects with the warmth of the organic, and the rigidity of recording media meets the ephemerality of human perception, producing delicate fluctuations and the sense of new narratives. Like excavating relics from the future, these works reconsider the relationship between technology and humans, offering attempts to renew our ways of perceiving and being.
Exhibiting Artists
Yuma KISHI / WAITINGROOM
“The Brides(divided and rebuilt)”, 2020, two-channel video with mono sound, color, loop
Born in 1993, he graduated from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Keio University and went on to complete graduate studies in Electrical Engineering at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering, before earning a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Arts at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts.
He approaches artificial intelligence not as a mere “tool,” but as an “Alien Intelligence,” exploring new possibilities for creative expression through collaboration between humans and AI. Incorporating his self-developed AI model “MaryGPT” into both the creation and exhibition design of his works, he works across painting, sculpture, and installation, reinterpreting art-historical motifs and cultural codes along the way.
Recent solo exhibitions include “Oracle Womb” (√K Contemporary, Tokyo, 2025) and “The Frankenstein Papers” (DIESEL ART GALLERY, Tokyo, 2023). Selected group exhibitions include “DXP2” (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2024).
Born in 1991 in Tokyo, she graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Faculty of Painting, Tama Art University in 2014. She creates paintings based on images that have emerged throughout history as people have tried to understand the world. For each subject, she collects visual references from multiple perspectives and constructs her works based on them. In doing so, she treats images of different qualities related to the same subject as equally significant, mixing various modes of depiction—such as realistic rendering and sketch-like lines—and employing techniques like paintings within paintings and trompe-l’œil. This approach creates a visual tension and raises questions about what is truly visible.
Her solo exhibitions include “Tange, movebis” (Mitsukoshi Contemporary Gallery, 2024), “Minato no Yashi, Taisha no Glass Float” (Quadrivium Ostium, 2024), and “Pseudomer” (RED AND BLUE GALLERY, 2024). Selected group exhibitions include “Two-Person Exhibition: Ryoko Kumakura and Naoya Hirata” (Satoko Oe Contemporary, 2025) and “Figures and Still Lifes” (Gallery Koyanagi, 2024).She has been recognized as a scholarship recipient of the 34th Holbein Scholarship in 2021 and was selected for the Gunma Young Artists Biennale in 2019.
Born in 1992, he graduated from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Art, Tokyo Zokei University in 2016. Having been familiar with GUI environments such as Macintosh computers and purikura photo booths from an early age, Kobayashi identifies himself as a “GUI native.” Through photography and digital editing, he has pursued the question: “What does it mean to capture truth?”
In his representative series #smudge, he uses Photoshop’s smudge tool to stretch pixels, establishing the act of editing itself as a visual expression. More recently, his practice continues to traverse the boundaries between the documentary nature of photography and the generative capabilities of AI, questioning the fluidity of images in contemporary society and the nature of human existence.
Recent solo exhibitions include “#copycat” (WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, 2025), “EDGE” (agnès b. Gallery Boutique, Tokyo, 2022), and “Live in Fluctuations” (Little Big Man Gallery, Los Angeles, 2020).
Born in 1991 in Nagano Prefecture, he graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Faculty of Art, Musashino Art University in 2014.
Focusing on the themes of space, form, and physicality, he creates sculptural works using pre-existing 3D models and images collected from the internet. Primarily employing assemblage techniques, he constructs these works within virtual computer environments and then projects them into the physical world for exhibition. By utilizing virtual imagery, he embodies an alternative reality governed by new orders and explores the relationships between real-world objects by experimenting with multiple possible versions of potential worlds. In recent years, his practice has also focused on the bodily feedback of avatars as well as their ontological presence within VR social networks (VRSNS).
Recent solo exhibitions include “Reflections of Bric-a-Bracs” (Shiseido Gallery, 2025), “Moonlit Night Horn” (Satoko Oe Contemporary, 2024), and “Sakashima” (Satoko Oe Contemporary, 2021). He was awarded the Gateau Festa Harada Prize at the Gunma Young Artists Biennale 2019, and his work is included in the public collection of the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (2022).
