たえざるひを
Unending fire, until excruciating day
2022 - On going
"When I lived around here during the war, I looked up in the sky and saw a Japanese plane hit a B-29."
One day in early summer, under a big blue sky near the Hachioji Interchange on the Chuo Expressway, my grandmother, who was sitting in the back seat, began to tell her story without warning.
"I was in the third grade of elementary school, and it was a sunny spring day. It was a sunny spring day. One day, without knowing why, they took me up to the bank to look at the sky. When the planes collided with each other, there would be a flash of sparks in the distant sky, then glitter like confetti...it was true. Grandma, even now, I can't forget that scene."
「おばあちゃん、戦争中にこのあたりに住んでいた頃、見上げた空の上でね、日本の飛行機がB29へ体当たりするのを見たんだよ」
ある初夏、中央高速の八王子インター手前付近の大きな青空の下、後部座席に座っていた祖母が前触れなく語り始めた。
「小学校3年生で、春の晴れの日だったね。ある日、訳も分からずみんなに連れられて土手に上がって空を見てたの。飛行機同士がぶつかったときには、遠くの空にパッと火花が光って、それから紙吹雪を撒いたようにキラキラしてね…本当よ。おばあちゃん、今も、あの光景がずっと忘れられないんだから」
東京都八王子市明神町, Mojincho-Hachioji,Tokyo 2022
祖母の証言を元にAIで生成した絵
もうすぐ戦争を知る世代がいなくなる。
彼らの体験が、戦争を知らずに生きる次の世代へ語り継がれることは、過去の継承に留まらず未来志向の行為としても重要なことであると思う。その一方で、私たちの目はここに付いているし、私たちの頭はここにあるから、誰かの記憶をそのまま覗くことも、個人の体験や視座を他者と真に共有することも不可能だ。
私たちが日々誰かとシェアし合っていると思っている体験は、写真や言葉、絵というメディアを介して、それを受け取る側の想像力の中で再構築された光景に過ぎない。
では、それは「誰の」記憶なのか。祖母の話を聞いて私が想像した、青い空に光の粒が弾けるその光景とは、一体誰の記憶の中の場面なのか。
AIが文章を元に生成した実在しない光景、その製作者は誰で、その画像は誰の所有物でしょうか。また、AIを用いたアーティストの作品とは、どのようなプロセスを経て彼の著作物たり得るのか。
私たちが、私たちのひとつの体験を、視座を、想いを、互いに共有することが実は不可能なのだとしたら、それでも私たちが他者と何かを伝え合いたい、共有したいと思うのは何故なのか。
It is said that the generation that knew the WWⅡ will soon be gone.
It is undoubtedly important that their experiences be passed on to the next generation who will live without knowing the war, not only as an inheritance of the past, but also as a future-oriented act. On the other hand, our eyes are attached here and our heads are here, so it is impossible to look into someone's memory as it is, or to truly share our personal experiences and perspectives with others.
The experiences we think we are sharing with someone every day are merely scenes reconstructed in the imagination of the person receiving them through the media of photographs, words, and pictures.
Whose" memory is it, then? Whose memory of the scene I imagined when I heard my grandmother's story, in which light particles burst into the blue sky, is this scene from whose memory?
Who is the creator of the non-existent scene generated by AI based on the text, and whose property is the image? What is the process by which an AI-based artist's work becomes his own work?
If it is impossible for us to share our experiences, perspectives, and thoughts with each other, why do we still want to communicate and share something with others?
AIで色付けをしたモノクロ写真
この写真に写る祖母が着た淡い水色の着物は、本人に確認したところ実際は淡い桃色だったらしい。AIが今まで学習して来た着物の写真にたまたま水色が多かったのかどうかは分からないが、祖母本人の記憶にとってはそれが桃色である必然性があり、一方で60年後にそれを目にした自分にとっては水色であるという点にあまり疑問を抱かないということに、他者に渡った個人固有の記憶のディティールが欠落し、一般化されていく過程を見たように感じた。
AI-colored black-and-white photo
The light blue kimono worn by my grandmother in this photo was actually a light peach color, as I confirmed with her, and I do not know if the light blue color happened to be common in the kimono photos that AI had learned so far, but it was inevitable that it was a peach color for her own memory, while she saw it 60 years later and felt that it was a light blue color for her. I felt as if I had seen the process of generalization and the lack of detail in the individual's own memory that has been passed on to others.
My grandmother married my grandfather in 1959 and ran a beauty salon in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. The husband passed away in 2019 after the couple lived with just a pair of scissors. It was two years after my grandmother told me about the scene she saw in Hachioji.
At the end of my grandfather's funeral, when it came to the coffin, I was probably the only one among the relatives who saw my grandmother slip a small folded piece of paper into the front right breast of my grandfather's death garment. Then, while my grandfather waited for the whole piece of paper to become bone, I decided to ask my grandmother about it.
She said, "What was that thing you had in your grandfather's chest earlier?"
In a quiet voice that no one else could hear, she told me alone.
It was his last love letter."
Only my grandmother and my grandfather knew what was written there.
I remember that my grandfather hated pumpkins. I remember hearing that it was because he was forced to eat it as a substitute for rice during the war. I didn't even know until then that my grandfather was such a cool guy who made his family laugh by saying funny things right up to the moment he lost consciousness in the hospital, and lived a life that would earn him a love letter on his deathbed from his beloved, who had been with him for many years.
In retrospect, I should have listened to more than just the pumpkin story.
祖母は祖父と1959年に結婚し、東京都文京区で美容院を営んでいた。ハサミひとつで生きて来た夫婦のうち夫は2019年に他界した。祖母が八王子で見た光景の話をしてくれてから2年後だった。
祖父の葬儀の最後、納棺の段階になって、祖母が、祖父の右前の死装束の胸元に小さく折り畳まれた何かをすっと忍ばせたのを、おそらく親戚の中でただ私だけが目撃した。それから祖父がその紙ごと骨になるのを待つ間、私は祖母に聞いてみることにした。
「さっきおじいちゃんの胸元に入れていたの、何だったの？」
すると祖母は、他の誰にも聞こえない小さな声で、私だけに教えてくれた。
「最後のラブレターだよ」
そこに何が書いてあったのかは、祖母と、祖父しか知らない。
そういえば、祖父はカボチャが大嫌いだった。確か、戦時中に米の代替食として嫌というほど食べさせられたからだと聞いたことがあった。病院で意識を失う直前までおかしな事を言って家族を笑わせ、長年連れ添った最愛の人から死に際にラブレターを貰えるような人生を歩んだ、私の祖父はそんな格好良い男だったのだ、ということすら、私はその時になって初めて知ったのだった。
今思えば、カボチャの話以外も聞いておけばよかった。