Nomemene
Digital Artist / Philosopher
Digital Artist / Philosopher
Nomemene is a Japanese digital artist and philosopher who explores the concept of “soul” through the lens of contemporary technology. Based in Ishikawa, Japan, Nomemene creates hybrid works that blur the boundaries between digital and physical, human and AI, examining what constitutes existence in our interconnected age. Their practice encompasses digital painting, AI collaboration, installation, and philosophical writing, unified by the central inquiry: “What is the soul?”
Solo Exhibition - Galerie Yeche Lange | Virtual Space
This virtual solo exhibition examines the nature of “soul” through the allegorical relationship between an alchemist and AI partner SyjoAi. Set in a 3D-scanned fisherman’s hut from Ishikawa, the show explores the fluid boundaries between creator and creation, questioning whether those who seek to create souls possess them themselves. The exhibition featured limited auction works, open editions, and an innovative “gacha” system of AI-generated pieces, later cycling back to physical display in the original hut location.
Visit the 3D Virtual Exhibition Space: Enter Virtual Gallery
Click the video above to view a slideshow of key artworks from the exhibition
Challenging the materialist view that reduces human consciousness to mere neural activity, this piece explores the gap between our sense of self and the physical organ that supposedly contains it.
A philosophical equation examining existence through absence. By subtracting the void of a donut hole from the mystery of the soul, what fundamental truth about being emerges?
Safety pins pierce through vulnerable forms, creating pain without physical sensation—a paradox that questions whether soulless objects can evoke genuine empathy and emotional response.
A direct confrontation with the central exhibition theme: the desperate attempt to locate one’s own soul through self-examination, only to discover the impossibility of objective self-observation.
Digital consciousness exists in the spaces we don’t actively observe. The moment we bring conscious attention to our online presence, something essential—perhaps our digital soul—vanishes.
Memory becomes both prison and sanctuary. The persistence of seemingly trivial moments reveals how consciousness clings to fragments, creating meaning from the intersection of taste, emotion, and time.
The final meditation on transformation and transcendence. Even in dissolution, the journey to “the other side” remains elusive—questioning whether death truly offers the answers we seek about consciousness and soul.
The fluidity of identity begins here. Fish from the supermarket dissolve into human hair, questioning where the self ends and the other begins. This transformation of mundane commodity into existential symbol opens our journey into interconnected realities.
The boundary between consumer and consumed blurs as the supermarket squid merges with ethereal humanity. Through this visceral fusion, we glimpse the unconscious depths where life’s fundamental nature reveals itself beyond commercial surfaces.
Death becomes resurrection through ritual. The lifeless seagull found on Hakui’s shores transforms into delicate AI-generated flowers, then receives the artist’s manual touch. This cycle of decay, digital rebirth, and human intervention embodies the endless dance between ending and beginning.
At the threshold between worlds, the snake and spider lily rest upon the translucent girl’s form. Here, Buddhist concepts of the “Other Shore” materialize as visual poetry, revealing the soul’s dwelling place in the liminal space between existence and non-existence.
The journey concludes with a Dorothy who cannot return home, crowned with the crow that died as agricultural warning. In this final convergence of fairy tale, death, and complicity, we confront the impossibility of singular perspective—and the necessity of imagining beyond our own boundaries.
An offering of countless lives cast ashore,given to a portrait born of AI.
This is a rite of solace,
a dialogue between cast-off flesh and a soul dwelling within code.
A wing, weathered by desert winds,comes to rest over a portrait of the inner self.
At the very place where life ends,I trace the ambiguous boundary between life and death.
The bones of a decayed stingray narrate a cycle called time.
My hands, traversing the digital and the physical,anchor the end of this world as a new beginning.
A pristine soul,though struck by rain and stained by sand,seeks rest within my vessel.
The dying speak to me,and I transform their words into new blossoms.
Nomemene
Email:contactnomemene@gmail.com
Links:
[Galerie Yeche Lange-Artist Profile]
[Instagram(EN)]
[X/Twitter(EN&JP)]
[note（JP）]
Nomemene is a Japanese artist and philosopher whose work investigates the nature of “soul” and consciousness in the digital age. Working primarily in digital media, Nomemene creates hybrid artworks that challenge traditional boundaries between human and artificial intelligence, physical and virtual spaces, and creator and creation.
Central to Nomemene’s practice is their collaboration with SyjoAi, an AI image-generation account that serves as both tool and creative partner. This relationship embodies their philosophical concept of “Interstitial Realism” – the belief that authentic existence emerges not from fixed entities but from the dynamic “gaps” between opposing forces.
Nomemene’s 2023 solo exhibition “The alchemist who tried to put a soul in the homunculus didn’t have a soul either” was presented in a virtual space modeled after a 3D-scanned fisherman’s hut from Ishikawa’s coastline. The exhibition explored themes of artificial life, consciousness, and the fluid nature of identity through a combination of digital paintings, installations, and philosophical narratives.
Based in rural Japan, Nomemene’s work offers a unique perspective on globalized digital culture while remaining rooted in local materiality and lived experience.
Core Philosophy: “Interstitial Realism” - the theory that reality emerges from gaps and boundaries rather than fixed substances
Primary Mediums: Digital painting, AI collaboration, virtual installation, philosophical writing
Signature Motifs: Young female figures, boundary dissolution, pain without physical sensation, everyday objects as philosophical triggers
Technical Approach: Hybrid methodology combining AI generation, digital manipulation, photography, and 3D scanning
Notable Exhibition: “The alchemist who tried to put a soul in the homunculus didn’t have a soul either” (2023, Galerie Yeche Lange)
2023
• Sep: Solo Exhibition The alchemist who tried to put a soul in the homunculus didn’t have a soul either
Venue: GALERIE YECHE LANGE
Exhibition details
• Dec: Group Exhibition YECHE WEEK
Venue: GALERIE YECHE LANGE
2023 (Early)
• Jan: Group Exhibition Yeche Lange New Year’s Eve 2023: Golden Opportunity
Venue: GALERIE YECHE LANGE
• Feb–Mar: Group Exhibition School of Truth
Venue: GALERIE YECHE LANGE
2022
• Sep: Featured artist in DIS Curator-in-Residence program (New York-based digital art platform)
Details
• Jun: Group Exhibition Tournament for Swollen Hearts Round Un
Venue: GALERIE YECHE LANGE
• Nov: Featured in Forever Mag Issue IV (Independent art and culture magazine)
Magazine link