Kenta Cobayashi × Yuma Kishi Talk “Human and AI — Intelligence in the In-Between”
10/11(Sat.) 2pm-
https://waitingroom.jp/en/news/cobayashi-kishi-talk/
WAITINGROOM (Tokyo) is pleased to present “#copycat,” a solo exhibition by Kenta Cobayashi from September 13th (Sat.) to October 12th (Sun.), 2025. Known for his vivid photographic works—dramatically transformed through digital manipulation of his own images—Cobayashi explores the question, “What does it mean to capture the truth?” within the shifting terrain of urban imagery and the fluidity of memory in the digital environment. The exhibition title, copycat, means “imitator,” and is also a catchphrase given to Cobayashi by the AI agent “MIRA.” For this exhibition, the artist presents a new series in which past work data is fed into a generative AI and overlaid with the image of a cat, unfolding across the gallery space. In this series, Cobayashi positions both AI and cats—entities that elude human control—as “other species that gaze upon humanity.” The contemporary rise of AI, along with the meme-driven fascination with cats, is reconsidered here as a latent human desire to discern the contours of our own species through the eyes of another, as well as a reflection of the modern human condition’s longing for such a gaze.
“#copycat” Visual Images
About the artist, Kenta Cobayashi
Born in Kanagawa, Japan, in 1992, Kenta Cobayashi graduated from Tokyo Zokei University with a BFA in Painting in 2015. Currently based between Tokyo and Shonan. He grew up in the GUI environment of the 1990s, interacting with the family Macintosh and software such as Purikura photo booths and KID PIX, and describes himself as “GUI native.” Through photography and digital editing, he has pursued the question, “What does it mean to capture the truth?” His signature #smudge series employs Photoshop’s smudge tool to stretch photographic pixels, establishing “the act of editing itself” as a form of visual expression. This approach has expanded into a variety of media—including computer graphics, sculpture, video, and installation—through which Cobayashi investigates the fluidity of memory in urban imagery and the digital environment. Recent exhibitions include the group show AI / POST PHOTO (Art Golden Gai, Tokyo, 2025); HYPER_IMAGE_SCAPE (Boogie Woogie Art Museum [Ulsan Art Museum], Ulsan, South Korea, 2023); solo shows EDGE (Agnès b. Galerie Boutique, Tokyo, 2022), THE PAST EXISTS (Mitsukoshi Contemporary Gallery, Tokyo, 2022), Tokyo Debris (WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, 2022), Space-Time Continuum (Seibu Shibuya, Tokyo, 2022), #smudge (ANB Tokyo, Tokyo, 2021); group shows COMING OF AGE (Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France, 2022), I am here by WAITINGROOM (CADAN Yurakucho, Tokyo, 2021), Photo 2021: The Truth (Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia, 2021); solo show Live in Fluctuations (Little Big Man Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, 2020); solo show The Magician’s Nephew (rin art association, Gunma, 2019); group show Hello World: For the Post-Human Age (Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, 2018); solo show Automobile Insect Theory / What is Beauty? (G/P gallery, Tokyo, 2017); and group show GIVE ME YESTERDAY (Fondazione Prada Osservatorio, Milan, Italy, 2016). In 2019, he collaborated with Dunhill under the direction of Mark Weston for its Spring/Summer 2020 collection, and produced campaign images for Louis Vuitton’s 2019 Fall/Winter Men’s Collection under the direction of Virgil Abloh.
“#copycat” Visual Images
Expanding Spatiotemporal Perception through Media — Muybridge, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and Kenta Cobayashi
By Yoshida Yamar (Independent Curator)
Kenta Cobayashi is an artist who has persistently pursued the fundamental questions: “What is photography?” and “What is truth?” From an era in which the camera was believed to faithfully capture objective reality, we have entered a time when the rise of photo manipulation and AI-generated images has made the boundary between truth and fabrication easily blurred. Furthermore, like in Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story “In a Grove”, we now live in an age in which not only do individuals tell their own versions of the truth, but each also visualizes their own perception of it.
Even before the arrival of such a multilayered human society—one that resonates with the concept of “Umwelt” proposed by biologist Jakob von Uexküll—Cobayashi had been exploring expressions deeply intertwined with technology. In his representative #smudge series, he uses the smudge tool in Photoshop, deliberately exposing rather than concealing the digital interface that edits “truth,” and pursuing a form of visual art born from the interplay of response and action.
In the new works presented in this solo exhibition, #copycat, Cobayashi uses the AI image generation service “Midjourney.” Due to the interface’s specification—where four variant images are simultaneously generated from a single text prompt—Cobayashi presents multiple variations originating from one instruction as belonging to a single work, suggesting an alternative form of reproduction art in the AI era.
Just as new interfaces brought about by AI can spark new forms of expression, a similar innovation took place in the 19th century. Photographer Eadweard Muybridge succeeded in capturing sequential photographs using 24 cameras, breaking down the motion of horses in a way imperceptible to the naked eye. This exposed the objective reality of a horse’s gallop and, with his invention of the “zoopraxiscope” to project sequential images, Muybridge became a technological forerunner of cinema. His work represented a breakthrough that offered humanity a new way to visualize “time.”
“To see time” is an iconic phrase from the Mobile Suit Gundam series, but the concept of the “Newtype” as defined by director Yoshiyuki Tomino refers not simply to a person with supernatural abilities, but to a human capable of mutual understanding through the sharing of sensations and emotions beyond language. In the 2025 latest installment, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, though directed by another, the phrase endures, carrying forward the Newtype’s multidimensional perception of time. Just as Muybridge’s physical camera technology decomposed time to grant humanity a new sense of perception, technology today extends the scope of individual human cognition, making multidimensional perception possible.
I have come to see Cobayashi’s provocation as part of a lineage of efforts to expand human perception—Muybridge through the physical medium of photography, Tomino through the medium of science-fiction animation—while also recognizing it as an artistic practice that prompts a redefinition of our spatial perception in the age of AI.
Solo Exhibition “Tokyo Débris” (2022, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo)
installation view, Photo: Shintaro Yamanaka (Qsyum!)
Artist Biography
1992 Born in Kanagawa, Japan
2015 Tokyo Zokei University, Bachelor’s degree, Painting
Currently lives and works in Tokyo and Shonan area.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
#copycat, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, Japan
2022
EDGE, agnès b. galerie boutique, Tokyo, Japan
THE PAST EXISTS, Mitsukoshi Contemporary Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Débris, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, Japan
Space-Time Continuum, Seibu Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
2021
#smudge, ANB Tokyo 6F Studio1, Tokyo, Japan
2020
CALENDAR, People,Tokyo, Japan
Live in Fluctuations, Little Big Man Gallery, Los Angeles, America
2019
The Magician’s Nephew, rin art association, Gunma
Kenta Cobayashi. Portraits, curated by Marcella Manni, Nonostante Marras, Vogue Photo Festival, Milan, Italy
Photographic Universe, curated by Francesco Zanot, Fotografia Europea 2019, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Rapid Eye Movement, IMA gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2017
Insectautomobilogy / What is an aesthetic?, G/P gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2016
#photo, G/P gallery, Tokyo, Japan
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
AI / POST PHOTO, curated by Shigeo Goto, as part of Art Golden Gai, NOX Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2024
Art Squiggle Yokohama 2024, Yamashita Futo, Yokohama, Japan
2023
HYPER_IMAGE_SCAPE, Boogie Woogie Art Museum (Ulsan Art Museum), Ulsan, Korea
RE: FACTORY – Meet Your Art Festival 2023, w/ WAITINGROOM, Warehouse Terrada G1/G3 Building, Tokyo, Japan
EAST EAST_, w/ TAV Gallery, Science Museum, Tokyo, Japan
elective affinities Part1, agnès b. galerie boutique, Tokyo, Japan
2022
Human Behaviour, Teppei Kaneuji × Kenta Cobayashi, RICOH ART GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan
Asama International Photo Festival 2022 – Photo MIYOTA, MMoP, Nagano, Japan
COMING OF AGE, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
Opening Reception, TAV GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan
Structure of a Flow, Metronome, Modena, Italy
ART FAIR TOKYO 2022, w/ WAITINGROOM, Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo, Japan
SHIBUYA FASHION WEEK 2022 SPRING, Shibuya Scramble Square, Tokyo, Japan
SPRING SHOW, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, Japan
2021
I am here by WAITINGROOM, CADAN YURAKUCHO, Tokyo, Japan
constellation#02, rin art association, Gunma, Japan
Shape of Gaze.02, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, Japan
New Existentialism, Unexistence Gallery, ONLINE / HULIC &New UDAGAWA, Tokyo, Japan
Photo 2021: The Truth, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia
2020
SOURCE/ADIT: Studio TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH, ENCOUNTERS, ANB Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Nature is Not your Household, ONLINE
constellation #01, rin art association, Gunma, Japan
2019
The Shape of Things to Come: Technology – AI and the Human, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Asama International Photo Festival 2019 – Photo MIYOTA, Nagano, Japan
n e w f l e s h, curated by Efrem Zelony-Mindell, The Light Factory, North Carolina, America
TENNOZ ART FESTIVAL 2019, Tennoz isle, Tokyo, Japan
#005 PHOTO Playground, Ginza Sony Park, Tokyo, Japan
Arte Fiera 2019, Bologna Exhibition Center, Bologna, Italy
2018
BRAVE NEW WORLD – 2018 SEOUL PHOTO FESTIVAL, SeMA + Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
Unseen Amsterdam 2018, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Breda Photo Festival, Breda, Netherlands
Asama International Photo Festival 2018 – Photo MIYOTA, Former Mercian Karuizawa Museum, and surrounding area, Miyota, Japan
From My Point of View, Metronom, Modena, Italy
Hello World – For the Post-Human Age, ART TOWER MITO, Mito, Japan
Tokyo Before/After, The Japan Foundation, Toronto, Canada
2017
Forever Fornever, Bannister Gallery, Providence, America
Unseen Amsterdam 2017, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Guangzhou Image Triennial 2017, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
FORMAT International Photography Festival, Derby, UK
2016
GIVE ME YESTERDAY, Fondazione Prada Milan Osservatorio, Milano, Italy
asdfghjkl;’ x くぁwせdrftgyふじこlp, 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
New Rube Goldberg Machine, KAYOKOYUKI + Komagome SOKO, Tokyo, Japan
New Material, Casemore Kirkeby, San Fransisco, America
Close to the Edge: New Photography from Japan, MIYAKO YOSHINAGA, New York, America
NEW VISIONS #2, G/P gallery shinonome, Tokyo, Japan
2015
Trans-Tokyo / Trans-Photo, Jimei×Arles East West Encounters International Photo Festival, Xiamen, China
Gestaltkreis, HAGISO, Tokyo, Japan
The Devil May Care, Noorderlicht Photogallery, Groningen, Netherlands
hyper-materiality on photo (Photo London), Somerset House, London, UK
hyper-materiality on photo, G/P gallery SHINONOME, Tokyo, Japan
New Japanese Photography, DOOMED GALLERY, London, UK
ISLAND IS ISLANDS, NORIKO NAKAZATO × Psychic VR Lab × Kenta Cobayashi, G/P gallery shinonome, Tokyo, Japan
TOKYO FRONTLINE PHOTO AWARD NEW VISIONS #1, G/P gallery SHINONOME, Tokyo, Japan
2014
Multi(Multi)(ple(s)), The Container, Tokyo, Japan
The Exposed #7, G/P gallery SHINONOME, Tokyo, Japan
PICTURE-PARTY 2, TAV Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
PICTURE-PARTY 1, SHIBUHOUSE, Tokyo, Japan
2013
MEGA MAX GIGA GREAT ZERO ZILLION NEBULA NOVA, TANA Gallerybookshelf, Tokyo, Japan
THE NEW BLACK, UltraSuperNew Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
GIGMENTA 2013: IKERU-KIGASURU, curated by SHIBUHOUSE, HIGURE 17-15 cas, Tokyo, Japan
SELECTED COLLABORATIONS / CAMPAIGNS
2022 Adidas ‘Kenta Cobayashi x adidas SPORTSWEAR’, Tokyo, Japan
Louis Vuitton ‘LV DREAM’, wallpaper, Paris, France
Summer Sonic 2022, main gate, Tokyo, Japan
GINZA SIX, window display & campaign images, Tokyo, Japan
Seibu Shibuya, window display & campaign images, Tokyo, Japan
2021 TOYOTA Corolla Cross, TV commercial & campaign images, Tokyo, Japan
2020 Dunhill ‘Blue Capsule Collection’ by Mark Weston, collaboration, London, UK
2019 Dunhill ‘Men’s Spring/Summer 2020’ by Mark Weston (collaboration), London, UK
Louis Vuitton ‘Men’s Fall/Winter 2019’ by Virgil Abloh (campaign images), Paris, France
2018 Unseen Amsterdam 2018 (campaign images), Amsterdam, Netherlands
AWARD
2015 TOKYO FRONTLINE PHOTO AWARD 2015, Grand prize
PUBLIC COLLECTION
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
Tokyo Before/After, The Japan Foundation
Amana Collection
Takahashi Collection
Solo Exhibition “#smudge” (2021, ANB Tokyo 6F Studio1, Tokyo)
installation view, Photo: Taisuke Koyama
