CLEMENTINE

Mariko Mori creates multimedia work that conceives of art, technology, and Buddhist spirituality as interconnected, unifying forces. In the 1990s she turned to fashion and science fiction as pop-cultural models to produce unsettling, high-gloss dreamscapes.

Staged in Osaka’s Kansai International Airport, the video Miko No Inori (The Shaman-Girl’s Prayer) presents a calming but otherworldly vision. Mori stars as an extraterrestrial character: outfitted in a white, iridescent costume and wearing reflective, icy-blue contact lenses, she turns a crystal ball as if conjuring the future or caressing the object of her affection. A recording of the artist singing a haunting Japanese song (“The word is melting; the word is melting, becoming one”) plays in the background.

In this work, Mori is not only an extraterrestrial, but also a shaman—a person who acts as an intermediary between the earthly and spiritual realms.