ONEIRICONEIRICAt night, Tokyo’s urban density creates an interplay of artificial lighting and shadow, which can lend an air of mystery to any subject. The kojo moe movement, for example, focuses simply on factories, power plants, and refineries that are lit dramatically at night, reimagining industrial structures through the lens of the sublime. When combined with transient urban scenes such as empty hotel rooms and evening commutes, noir aesthetics are elevated to a backdrop for poetic vignettes of urban solitude. These are times and places of limbo, when people are in transit between the social narratives that define them, and are presented with an opportunity for moments of quiet introspection and anagnorisis.
