Data Pilgrim

Glitch Pilgrims is a series of artworks by Emi Kusano, weaving together contemporary mythological pilgrimages floating within digital spaces through collaboration with AI.

 

Human societies have always bonded through shared stories and collective fictions. Myths, religions, and social norms—these imaginary frameworks enabled us to cooperate on a massive scale. However, today’s abundance of information threatens to overwhelm rather than unite us. In this series, Kusano visualizes this tension by referencing motifs from Japanese mythology, including spirits (kami), yokai, drifting souls, and anonymous crowds, depicted in a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional ukiyo-e aesthetics.

 

The works are created through repeated cycles of AI image regeneration and recombination, causing the images to hallucinate—distorting original meanings and generating entirely new visual realities. By revealing this iterative and transformative process, the artworks emphasize both the creative potential and profound dangers inherent in the use of artificial intelligence. Information, depending on how it is employed, can either illuminate or mislead, clarify or confuse.

 

Anonymous pilgrims traverse these virtual landscapes, stepping into the fragile yet sacred domain of the glitch, where prayers become quantified, souls are recorded as data, and faith itself is rewritten by algorithms.