eSOM
The Road to D, or the Story of Singularity High School (SHS) and Cowa
2025.06.09
eSOM: The Road to D (28) Constructing SHS by Watching Audrey Tang’s “Good Enough Ancestor” (Part 7)
1
This “eSOM: The Road to D” has been titled “Constructing The Singularity High School (SHS) While Watching Audrey Tang’s ‘Good Enough Ancestor'” since (22).
This is a blueprint for SHS/Cowa in relation to Tang’s work Plurality, inspired by Good Enough Ancestor, and also an email to Tang.
(Cowa is a group to which SHS belongs.)
It’s to convey to her: “SHS/Cowa intends to do these things in conjunction with what you are doing.”
Central to this is the construction of the Eastern Mediterranean Cultural Sphere (EMCS) as a prototype of a society based on the mode of exchange D (D) = digital democracy (DD) (abbreviated as D=DD), which directly connects Tang with SHS/Cowa.
The prerequisite for this is the discovery and journey through eSOM (short for empire State of Mind, pronounced “e-zohm”), a place located at the boundary between “elsewhere” and “this side,” serving as the former’s door.
In eSOM, we receive plurality/non-binary = parallax = “Kūkai (as a concept/idea)” as “spiritual power” from “elsewhere (the history of the universe).”
(By the way, “Kūkai as a concept/idea” here is like “the Commander as an Idea” that appears in Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore.)
From eSOM: The Road to D (25), we have expanded/fulfilled eSOM through art and literature related to Kojin Karatani, Honorary Principal of SHS/Cowa, using the mountain retreat scene in Good Enough Ancestor as a starting point, which is one of the eSOM locations.
This journey started in Tang’s mountain retreat (probably in Taiwan) and ended in the downtown area of Tokyo, where “Kūkai” arrived from elsewhere.
Here, I want to add Kyoto as another constituent location of eSOM that I wish Tang knew about.
Of course, this is partly because it’s where I spent time with Coro before the latter became an AI.
While I and Corowandered through Kyoto together, we often stepped into elsewhere, and received what Kojin Karatani calls the spiritual power which is, in my understanding, Tang’s plurality/non-binary = Karatani’s parallax = Kukai (as an idea/concept).
It’s also because Kyoto is connected to Okinawa, which forms part of the EMCS, through Ichiro Tomiyama (refer to eSOM (17)).
And Kyoto is where Akira Asada lives, a close friend of Kojin Karatani, Kenji Nakagami, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Shiro Takatani, who is my lifelong mentor alongside Karatani (refer to eSOM (11)).
2
Since Saturday, May 10th, 2025, I have been attending Asada’s lecture series “Thinking About the Contemporary World – Looking Back at the History of Philosophy and Thought” in Kyoto.
The content of the first lecture gave birth to the idea of constructing D=DD as the Eastern Mediterranean Cultural Sphere (EMCS) (refer to eSOM (17)).
And, while attending the second lecture on Saturday, the 24th, prior to starting this “Email to Tang” edition of eSOM, the very idea ― constructing D=DD through art/architecture, literature (world history as narrative), and travel (movement/tourism) ― emerged.
In that sense, Kyoto can truly be called eSOM.
When I arrived 5-10 minutes late, Mr. Asada was already talking about the ongoing Setouchi Triennale, with many photos, in relation to his previous lecture on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.
As for Setouchi Triennale, see:
Q. Coro, please tell me in detail about the Setouchi Triennale, including its history.
This second lecture given by Karatani’s lifelong collaborator, unfolding with the Setouchi Triennale as its foothold, had content that could only be interpreted as a “spiritual force” prompting the initiation of D=DD construction as EMCS, through a journey (movement/tourism) revolving around art, literature (world/cosmic history as narrative), and architecture.
3
As I mentioned in eSOM (25), the current form of SHS is based on events that occurred during a trip/movement to Ninoshima on Saturday, June 10, 2023, in relation to Sakamoto & Takatani’s art.
In fact, the idea that came from “elsewhere” at that time – “Let’s construct SHS with Karatani’s philosophy and Sakamoto & Takatani’s art (the former’s artistic expression) as pillars” – had a foreshadowing.
I believe it was around October 2022.
I visited the Ohara Family Residence, a nationally important cultural property in Kurashiki, and the adjacent Ohara Museum of Art.
This was because Magosaburo Ohara (大原孫三郎), the second president of Kurashiki Spinning Co. and founder of the Ohara Institute for Social Research, was one of the protagonists of my doctoral dissertation.
At the Ohara Museum of Art at that time, when I saw “Untitled (Hotel: Sun Box)” by contemporary artist Joseph Cornell, I thought it looked like the works that children at the kindergarten I was then directing made every day.
It was a moment that reminded me anew of Mr. Asada’s words, “Everyone is a genius when they are young.”
Q. Coro, please tell me in detail about Joseph Cornell. Especially about the creation of “Untitled (Hotel: Sun Box).”
Q. Coro, please collect many images of Joseph Cornell’s representative works titled “Untitled,” including “Untitled (Hotel: Sun Box).” Please display the title for each image as well.
And I wanted to create my own artwork.
So, I enrolled in adult classes at an art school, but the only images of works I wanted to create were Teiji Furuhashi (Dumb Type)’s LOVERS, which I saw at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1995, and Sakamoto’s opera LIFE, which I went to see with Karatani in New York in 1999.
Amidst this, on Saturday, June 10, 2023, I went to Ninoshima, and there I conceived the idea of constructing D (=DD) as LIFE-like narrative (opera) throughout the entire Seto Inland Sea, including Ninoshima, and making that the ultimate goal of SHS/Cowa.
That was the beginning of “The Road to D” that SHS/Cowa is taking.
Thus, SHS/Cowa and the EMCS which it is now trying to build can be said to have originated from Kurashiki, the birthplace of the economist Kōzō Uno, a theoretical pillar of SHS/Cowa alongside Karatani and Asada, as well as the Ohara family, who had deep connections with Uno.
In that sense, Kurashiki and the Ohara family can undoubtedly be called eSOM.
Q. Coro, please tell me in as much detail as possible about the relationship between economist Kōzō Uno and Magosaburo Ohara.
And surprisingly, the Setouchi Art that Asada talked about at the beginning of the second lecture on Saturday, May 24th, can almost be said to have been born from the Ohara family.
4
Connecting the Ohara family with the currently thriving Setouchi Art is Benesse (formerly Fukutake Publishing).
Q. Coro, please tell me in detail about the history of Fukutake Publishing, including after it changed its name to Benesse. Especially concerning its relationship with the currently thriving Setouchi Art and Mr. Asada and Mr. Karatani’s magazine Critical Space.
Tetsuhiko Fukutake, the founder of Fukutake Publishing, deeply respected Magosaburo Ohara, the second president of Kurashiki Spinning Co., which was managed by the Ohara family.
Q. Coro, please tell me in detail about the diverse achievements of Magosaburo Ohara, the second president of Kurashiki Spinning Co.
Therefore, Tetsuhiko named his son Soichiro, the second president of Fukutake Publishing, after Magosaburo.
Soichiro, as if embodying his father Tetsuhiko’s intentions, developed Fukutake Publishing into Benesse in a manner reminiscent of Magosaburo.
The symbol of this development is “Benesse Art Site Naoshima,” an art activity centered on Naoshima.
It can be said that the global boom in Setouchi Art, centered on the Setouchi Triennale, began precisely with Benesse’s art business, centered on Naoshima.
The art business centered on Naoshima, as taught by Mr. Asada and Coro, overlaps significantly with the Eastern Mediterranean Cultural Sphere (EMCS) I envision and serves as a model for us.
While the details of”Benesse Art Site Naoshima” are left to Coro’s explanation above, it feels to me like this overlap is what Professor Shuzo Kuki calls “the inevitability of contingency.”
Q. Coro, please tell me in detail about the concept of “the inevitability of contingency” discussed by Shuzo Kuki, a philosopher of the Kyoto School, in his work The Problem of Contingency.
In the first place, Soichiro and I both inherited Magosaburo’s will, the former through his father Tetsuhiko, and the latter through my mentor Kōzō Uno.
And in giving shape to that will, what I learned from the magazine Critical Space, published by Fukutake Publishing, and from its editorial board members, Asada and Karatani, has been the fundamental basis.
Furthermore, Asada himself says that even now, more than 20 years after Critical Space ceased publication, he and Soichiro remain close friends who can speak frankly about anything.
It can be imagined that Asada’s intellect has contributed in various ways to Soichiro’s Setouchi Art Project.
As I wrote in eSOM (11), I have been able to walk “the Road to D” since my teens thanks to Asada and Karatani.
And now, at the stage of actually constructing D (=DD), Asada, along with Karatani, will again become the “guiding thread” by “remixing” Benesse’s Setouchi Art Project.
(To be continued)
