A body of work that rearticulates the forms and spiritual dimensions of Japanese culture through materials, craft, light, sculpture, computation, and installation.
Interactive Comedy
2000
A work that realized a computer capable of making tsukkomi-style responses to humans based on the rhythm of manzai comedy and the unconscious information embedded in conversation. A turning point in which Japanese culture became an explicit theme.
Hitch-Haiku
2007
A work that computationally models the relationships among haiku form, cutting words, and seasonal words, and supports haiku generation through dialogue.
MU: Nothingness
2011
A sculptural work centered on the Zen concept of “mu,” realized through collaboration between sculpture and calligraphy.
Sansui Silhouette Summer & Fall
2011
Inspired by Sesshū’s seasonal sansui paintings, this work reconfigures the sansui format in a contemporary way using glass, light, and washi paper.
Sansui Silhouette Summer & Fall
Pure Water
2010
An installation that visualizes the Shinto concept of purity through an offering stand, washi paper, and the character “mu.”
Pure Water
Trunk of Culture : Torso series
2009
A work that gives form to a bodily image combining East and West, art and technology, and the animate and inanimate.
Trunk of Culture : Torso series
Space Flower Series
2016
“Space Flower Series” is a series that reconstructs the formal language of Japanese painting through the scattering and explosive moments of flowers, and serves as an homage to Rimpa. Its primary focus is how Rimpa can be reconfigured. In other words, this is not a work that simply presents Japanese culture as it is, but one that reconstructs the formal language of Rimpa through the scattering and bursting of flowers, temporal transformation, and imaging technology.
Space Flower Series https://naokotosa.co.jp/space-flower-series-2/
Miroku and Shōmon
2022
A work composed of glass, wood, and tatami, centered on cosmic nostalgia for Miroku Bosatsu and the shōmon awaiting raigō.
Miroku and Shōmon https://naokotosa.co.jp/maitreya-and-voice/
Ikebana Lamp Collection
2023
A series expanding the morphological language of Sound of Ikebana into lighting and glass works.
Ikebana Lamp Collection
Sound of Ikebana: East–West Digital Couture of Memory
2026
Sound of Ikebana: East–West Digital Couture of Memory transforms Naoko Tosa’s long-standing new media practice into a living performance where sound, image, fashion, and the body become carriers of cultural memory. At its core is Tosa’s Sound of Ikebana technique: invisible forms generated by sound vibrations in fluid are captured with a high-speed camera and translated into digital textile designs. These momentary “flowers of sound” become garments, allowing technology to preserve the instant and return it to the moving human body.
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Structured through the four seasons, the work connects Japanese sensibility with Western and cross-cultural expressions. Spring celebrates the radiance of life; summer evokes prayers to ancestors; autumn transforms harvest into a festival of cultural exchange; winter recalls the memory of battle and turns it toward peace. In one sequence, animation frames are printed directly onto a dress, so that movement and light make the image appear to live on the body.For Legacy Futures, this work asks how digital technology can carry memory beyond archives, museums, or screens. It reimagines ikebana not as a fixed arrangement, but as a temporal art of vibration, fabric, ritual, and performance. By weaving ancestral memory, seasonal time, disaster consciousness, and East–West cultural dialogue into digital couture, the work proposes a future where technology does not erase tradition, but gives it a new living form.