A.A.Murakami's The Moon Underwater

A.A.Murakami create immersive, multisensory installations that merge technology with ephemeral natural phenomena like fog, bubbles, and plasma. In their latest piece, Claude serves as a studio collaborator.

Feb 1, 20263mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

A.A.Murakami build a moon-reflection garden from bubbles and fog

A.A.Murakami present “The Moon Underwater,” a new installation launching at the Mori Art Museum in central Tokyo.
The work is their most technically ambitious project, built from fleeting phenomena like bubbles, fog rings, and plasma rather than screens or projections.
The concept draws on Japanese moon-viewing traditions, especially the idea that the moon appears most beautiful as a reflection in water, inspiring a nocturnal garden atmosphere.
The artists describe the hidden operational challenge of keeping autonomous systems stable as entropy and unpredictability disrupt them over time.
They use Claude as an always-available technical collaborator to understand and troubleshoot the physics and chemistry of effects like bubbles interacting with water, enabling deeper artistic iteration.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

The artwork is experienced through matter, not interfaces.

Rather than relying on screens or projections, A.A.Murakami build direct encounters with physical phenomena—bubbles, fog rings, and plasma—so the viewer meets the work in the room, not through a device.

Traditional aesthetics drive the installation’s form.

Japanese moon-viewing—where the moon’s reflection in water is prized—becomes a design principle, translated into a constructed “nocturnal garden” that evokes reflected, shifting beauty.

Technical autonomy is fragile because unpredictability is inevitable.

Even systems designed to run on their own degrade as “entropy creeps in,” meaning maintenance and adaptation are part of the artwork’s reality, even if invisible to visitors.

Claude is positioned as an invisible ‘gardener’ for complex systems.

They describe using Claude like the technician they can “leave behind,” analogous to a garden caretaker quietly sustaining harmony without drawing attention to itself.

Scientific understanding unlocks creative range with ephemeral effects.

By interrogating questions such as why bubbles bounce on water instead of merging, the artists use physics and chemistry explanations to iterate more precisely and push the work further.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

The Moon Underwater is the most technically ambitious project we've attempted to date.

— A.A.Murakami

We work with fleeting states of matter, so where you meet the work isn't through technology interfaces like screens or projections, but in fact it's through bubbles and fog rings and plasma.

— A.A.Murakami

For this piece, we were inspired by the Japanese tradition of moon viewing, which is the appreciation of the moon and how it is considered to be the most beautiful when it's seen in reflection in water.

— A.A.Murakami

We see it like a garden, and you're not really aware of the gardener that's silently keeping this whole harmony working.

— A.A.Murakami

In the end, The Moon Underwater is about impermanence, a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

— A.A.Murakami

Mori Art Museum installation launchEphemeral materials (bubbles, fog rings, plasma)Moon viewing and reflection-in-water aestheticsNocturnal garden as experiential settingAutonomous systems vs. entropyAI (Claude) as technician/collaboratorImpermanence and “art of disappearing”

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