New Dimensions: Expanded Consciousness explores the expansion of human awareness, uncovering dimensions of time, space, and existence that transcend conventional perception. In an age shaped by rapid technological evolution and destabilized realities, the exhibition reflects on the altered state of consciousness in which we now live—one so unfamiliar yet so normalized that we rarely pause to question it.

Curated by Masako Shiba of Brooklyn Experimental Art Foundation (BEAF), the exhibition brings together a group of artists whose practices draw from Zen philosophy, Buddhist cosmology, speculative technology, memory, and nature. Avatars as reincarnation. Generative language as teachings from the ancient past. Through immersive installations, generative systems, and spiritual motifs reimagined through digital tools, the exhibition asks: What if the turbulence of our moment is not a disruption, but a return—in which ancient wisdom reemerges through contemporary language?

Emi Kusano’s generative Office Lady avatar installation in the gallery’s street-facing window encounters thousands of actual office workers as they pass by one of the busiest office areas of Tokyo. Frozen in time, a makeshift retro office setting appears—something that “could have been real” but is obviously not (because offices don’t appear in show windows). Viewers question what they are seeing, only to be greeted inside by another Emi OL avatar on an old monitor—her tired gaze haunting, her presence eerie. Around the corner, the high-pitched techno of LuYang’s work pulses from the shadows.

At the threshold of the exhibition, LuYang’s early DOKU universe video loops feverish dancing—hip hop fused with traditional Southeast Asian styles—in hyper-futurist CGI. The genesis of the acclaimed series, this work marks the emergence of DOKU, the artist’s avatar who (spoiler alert) eventually becomes its own identity in a future version—a digital reincarnation blooming into chaotic brilliance.

In dialogue with DOKU is Takakurakazuki’s Character Selection Mandala, another kind of reincarnation—an enlightenment path rendered as a visual game map for navigating the universe. Like LuYang, the artist draws deeply from Buddhist study, exploring its teachings through imagery. Through his study group discussions, he began to see the Womb Realm and Diamond Realm mandalas not just as spiritual diagrams but as proto-video games—where the main character (and thus, we) progresses toward awakening.

Inside, Shlumper’s 3D printed version of an augmented reality sculpture occupies the vast floor of a dark room as if it is either an imaginary constellation or a futuristic zen garden. An ambitious act of experience design incorporating Einstein physics translated as emotional resonance into spatial vibration, activated through occasional sound meditation workshops. In some ways, the work is forgiving, as it allows the viewer to have so many ways of interpreting it and enjoying it that it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming one ‘gets it’ and be at peace with just one way of seeing things—but just sitting with the work, one notices there are hints of much more conceptual underpinnings we are not “seeing.” What if I told you the work secretly is flourishing in the metaverse? One must encounter the work in person in order to find out.

Setting the tone with her undeniable presence, the iconic Mariko Mori’s seminal work, Kumano, plays on a large projected area. The original artist who played with the sense of self as something constantly in flux, and the mind as the most treasured part of human experience. Kumano immerses the viewer in a lyrical journey through sacred landscapes, merging myth, ritual, and virtual performance—and another spoiler alert: Mariko plays multiple versions of different characters, almost like a Kurosawa method of telling a story from various vantage points and showing how vastly they differ in the end. The enchanting worlds she shows us through these acts are almost hard to believe they exist simultaneously, but they do. Even nearly 30 years after the work was created, they remain utterly convincing.

Upon exiting the darkened room comes the light of Sasha Stiles’ HEART MANTRAS, a series of engraved mirrored sculptures generated in collaboration with her AI alter ego, Technelegy. These seemingly poetic reflections are in fact prompts—or code. Fragments of language-as-algorithm, etched not only in mirror but in the lineage of programming as poetry. For Stiles, poetry is the source code of humanity, and these works ask us: what if the future of sentience is seeded through verse? What if these phrases aren’t only read, but run—activated like scripts within the body, echoing deeper than conscious interpretation?

And finally, Yasuo Nomura’s PION Plate—the first artwork ever exhibited on the exterior of the International Space Station—confronts the boundary between the cosmos and the self. Inspired by Dr. Hideki Yukawa’s pioneering pion theory from 1930s—believed to have emerged from meditative contemplation of mandalas and Eastern philosophy—the work honors a lineage where the most profound scientific discoveries are born of radical interiority. In a time of limited Western influence, Yukawa turned inward—and found the universe.

The PION Plate aka “Eyes on Us,” affixed to the ISS, orbited 400–600 kilometers above the Earth, circling the planet every 90 minutes at nearly 7 kilometers per second. A lonely traveler madly in love with Earth, it stares back—because Earth is all it needs. We are the center of its universe. And we, too, contain universes of our own.

Life may feel fragmented, disaligned, or too fast to comprehend. But gathered here, these works remind us: it’s all going to unfold in the best possible way—somehow, miraculously. Perhaps what we need most is to relearn the ancient wisdom that has always guided us—quietly and ironically—toward navigating this strange, fascinating technologically advanced, luminous, now.

Participating Artists
Emi Kusano
LuYang
Takakurakazuki
Shlumper
Mariko Mori
Sasha Stiles
Yasuo Nomura

Programs & Events

Opening Reception:
May 23, 6–8 PM

Curator Walkthroughs:
May 25, June 14 (EN), June 15 at 3 PM

Mandala-Dan Study Group with Takakurakazuki:
May 24, 1–2 PM

Sound Meditation Workshop by Hiko Konami:
May 24 & 25, 3–4:30 PM

Space Art Origin Stories:
June 14, 3–4 PM with Yasuo Nomura & Kaho Sakakibara

Details & Peatix Registrations

Organizers & Partners
主催：Mikke（一般社団法人Open Art Lab）

協力：鏑木由多加、Asia Society美術館、BEAF、各アーティスト、株式会社TODOROKI

Media Contact

Mikke Gallery
Email: info@mikke-gallery.com
Website: https://mikke-gallery.com

Images available upon request.