Beyond the Modern Sense of Time

Kei Wakabayashi (Blkswn Publishers Inc.) argued that our imagination has already moved away from science-fictional futures in which society is centrally integrated by technology, shifting instead toward what has been described as a “new medieval” chaotic order. As evidenced in anime such as Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, it is not spaceships but medieval motifs—portals, enchanted swords, and spirits—that stimulate popular imagination. Many games are set in medieval worlds, and children become familiar with sorcerous cosmologies, including dragons, through platforms such as Minecraft. Digital technologies and AI operate to reconstruct fragmented, polycentric networks; the mass media’s centralized control of information has eroded, and it has become structurally inevitable that peripheral rumors flow into the center.
This shift in imagination reveals contradictions within contemporary society. We speak of the need to depart from modernity—toward a circular economy, for example. Yet in reality, such a departure is already underway. Declining literacy rates, the migration of news media to podcasts, the proliferation of conspiracy theories, and the fandomization of politics all signal the collapse of modern order, while also indicating unavoidable structural transformations. Nevertheless, many people frame these changes as “problems to be solved,” attempting to return to modernity. Wakabayashi challenges us to confront this fundamental contradiction and to reconsider our values at a more foundational level.

Kei Wakabayashi

Wakabayashi further suggested that a sorcerous worldview is also evident in the relationship between humans and tools. Many tools were originally created as ritual or sorcerous objects before later becoming practical implements. As historian and folklorist Masao Takatori and historian Yoshihiko Amino have noted, distinctly Japanese sensibilities—such as feeling that one should not use another person’s tea bowl or chopsticks, or the custom of women hiding savings in sewing boxes—suggest that objects are imbued with individuality and inviolable domains. Tools are thus understood, in a sense, as talismanic objects.
Hiroshi Tamura (RE:PUBLIC Inc.) reflected on his fieldwork experience at CDW2025, observing that the act of sharpening a kitchen knife reconfigured the relationship between human and tool, generating new value through mindful care.

The discussion then turned to yoriai (寄合, local gathering)—traditional communal gatherings—as a mode of consensus-building grounded in a temporal consciousness distinct from modernity. As depicted by Tsuneichi Miyamoto, yoriai as practiced in village communities fundamentally differs from modern meetings. The introduction of clocks and writing through modernization institutionalized notions such as “agendas” and “problem-solving,” privileging speed and rational efficiency in reaching consensus.
By contrast, yoriai may continue for three days and nights, during which participants share experiences, wander off topic and return, and gradually arrive at a loose form of agreement. Embedded in this process are assumptions fundamentally different from modernity: attentiveness to ongoing relationships with those who will continue living side by side, and an attitude that does not seek perfect consensus.

Kei Wakabayashi

In the latter half, Daijiro Mizuno (Kyoto Institute of Technology) and Yoko Akama (RMIT University) joined the dialogue to explore forms of “practice” that move beyond modern temporal consciousness. Mizuno pointed to the limitations of SF prototyping and emphasized the importance of referencing medieval or sorcerous imaginaries as a point of departure for thinking from a position of “Not Here, Not Now.”
Akama reflected on childhood memories of Japanese folktales and the intuitive feelings of “fear” or “taboo” evoked by yōkai (妖怪, supernatural creatures), suggesting that such embodied intuitions may hold methodological significance even today.
Wakabayashi introduced the idea of visiting a library as a kind of grave visitation for knowledge, and described initiatives by florists conducting memorial rites for flowers. He emphasized the importance of preventing “zombification”—the indefinite prolongation of life through life-extending acts that deny death. To transmit knowledge and relationships across generations, the discussion suggested, we must design cycles that incorporate ritual acceptance of death alongside regeneration and circulation.
Building on this, Akama proposed that in order to transition toward “practice” beyond modern sensibilities, we may need to design and operate spaces for “practise”, that is, spaces in which such alternative modes can be rehearsed and experienced.
At the session’s conclusion, the relationship between archives and sorcery was addressed. Wakabayashi observed that in contemporary internet-based archives, the past does not remain past but lingers perpetually in the present. The session closed with the question of whether the past and imagined worlds might intrude into the present through “cursing” or “possessing (like ghosts).”