Artistic Experience as the Arrival from the Future: A Theoretical Reconstruction of the Aesthetician Mother Project Based on Repetition, Phase Shift, and Serendipity
Introduction
The sense of stagnation often pointed out in contemporary Japanese society can be understood not merely as socio-economic stagnation, but as a hardening of the subject's own experience of time. A temporal structure in which the future cannot open, the meaning of the past is fixed, and the present continues inertly creates cognitive and emotional stagnation in the individual. The Aesthetician Mother project, the subject of this study, is notable for interfering with this hardening of time and creating a unique artistic moment in which the subject experiences that 'a version of myself I do not know is coming from the future.' The purpose of this paper is to integrally understand this artistic experience through various philosophical, psychological, and phenomenological theories.
Previous research has been discussed in dispersed theoretical domains, such as Heidegger's existentialism, Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception, Foucault's doubling of subjectivity, and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). However, the temporal structure of the 'arrival of an unknown future' in the artistic practice of Aesthetician Mother requires repetition (Wiederholung), phase shift (reversibility), and **serendipity (the arrival of the accidental)** as key concepts to connect these theories transversally. This study aims to reconstruct the transformative moments of artistic experience using these three as core concepts.
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Theoretical Framework
1. Heidegger: Fateful Repetition and the Arrival of the Future
The 'repetition (Wiederholung)' presented by Heidegger in 'Being and Time' is not a mere reenactment of the past, but a movement that summons the possibilities of the future. Repetition is the moment when the subject takes on their own 'authentic possibilities' from the future, and the past acquires meaning only through the future. Referring to this structure, Heidegger calls repetition 'fateful (geschicklich).'
The artistic experience of Aesthetician Mother, which is the focus of this study—namely, the 'arrival of the self from the future'—almost perfectly matches the temporal structure of this fateful repetition. The experiencer is called upon by the work and re-acquires suppressed possibilities or an undifferentiated self-image as a future-oriented moment. This temporal reversal continues into the EMDR-like effects described later.
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2. Merleau-Ponty: Reversibility and Phase Shift of the Body
The 'reversibility (reversibilité)' of Merleau-Ponty's later period shows the possibility of reversing hierarchical relationships such as subject and object, or touching and being touched. The perceiving subject loses a fixed position, the boundary between self and world wavers, and the two phases overlap. In this moment, the subject experiences a new bodily position that captures the self from outside the self.
The 'sensation of being looked back at by the work' or the 'moment when one is opened without knowing oneself' in Aesthetician Mother's works are concrete artistic manifestations of this phase shift. The work leads the 'order' of the subject's perception into a state of fluctuation and connects it to a circuit of repetition.
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3. Foucault: Empirical and Transcendental Doubling of the Subject
Foucault stated that the modern subject has a duality of 'the self that experiences' and 'the self that observes the experience.' The experience in the Aesthetician Mother project generates this doubling with high intensity. The experiencer simultaneously sees 'the self that is reacting,' thereby relativizing the existing self-image and opening up future possibilities.
This structure is also seen in EMDR, where a multi-layered movement of consciousness occurs simultaneously when past emotional memories are reorganized into a new frame.
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4. Serendipity: The Philosophical Structure of Accidental Arrival
All three theories above share the structure that the self is renewed by an 'unexpected arrival.' In this study, we introduce serendipity as a concept to summarize this structure. Serendipity is not mere coincidence, but a 'meaningful coincidence' that only holds true when the subject is in a prepared state.
The call in Heidegger's repetition, the phase shift in Merleau-Ponty's reversibility, and the expansion of observability created by Foucault's doubling—these are all structures that ignite with serendipity as a trigger, and Aesthetician Mother's works spatially and bodily design such a 'structure of coincidence.'
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Methodology: Phenomenological Description and Comparative Analysis of Artistic Experience
This study consists of three stages:
1. Phenomenological description (reports and observations of experiencers)
2. Verification with philosophical theoretical models
3. Structural comparison of psychological methods (especially EMDR)
Here, EMDR has a process in which past memory networks are rearranged and emotions are released through bilateral stimulation. In this study, we verify to what extent artistic experience has a structure isomorphic to this process.
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Analysis: The Arrival of the Future in Aesthetician Mother's Works
In this section, we analyze multiple descriptions of work experiences and clarify the following three points:
1. Structure of repetition
— Past self-images are re-edited toward the future
2. Structure of phase shift
— The work and the body intersect, and the subject's position is reversed
3. Serendipitous moment
— Accidental discovery dramatically reconstructs self-understanding
These are firmly linked to each other, transforming artistic experience from mere appreciation into an existential event that alters the temporal structure itself.
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Conclusion: 'Experience of Love' as Art
This paper has reconstructed the artistic experience of Aesthetician Mother as a theoretical model keyed by fateful repetition, phase shift, and serendipity. There, the future arrives at the subject, and the subject transforms into a new self in response to that arrival. This structure is also similar to the reorganization of emotions in EMDR, indicating the foundation upon which art can have healing and transformative functions.
What Aesthetician Mother calls an 'experience of love' can be defined as an experience where not another person, but the 'future self' arrives at the subject, and the subject responds to that call. In this sense, love is the power to open oneself to the future, that is, the power to break through a closed temporal structure and move toward possibility.
The role that art can play in contemporary Japan lies precisely in preparing for this arrival of the future and creating a space that makes accidental events possible.