Ai no Mori examines the environmental memory of Akishima, Tokyo, a place at risk by a new data centre development that is being built on the citys green space to power the increasing demand for AI in Japan. It is just one of similar developments being proposed in the country.
Uses AI as both tool and subject, we tried to reproduce a memory reconstruction engine simulating remembrance of a place it has never truly known. It stitches together fragments—images, sounds, phrases—suggesting how machines might try (and fail) to preserve what their own growth destroys. We are working toward an open-source platform where Akishima's residents can upload their memories as a participatory archive of resistance.