William Gleason says Ueshiba 'created aikido based on the kototama principle,' and quotes him that 'Aikido is the superlative way to practice the kototama. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido and a student of Deguchi, used kototama as a spiritual basis for his teachings. Kototama or kotodama is also fundamental to Japanese martial arts, for instance, in the use of kiai. Uttering the divine words of the Shinto divination ritual known as ukehi supposedly determines results, and in this case, Amaterasu giving birth to five male deities proved that Susanoo's intentions were pure. For example, the Kojiki describes an ukei (or seiyaku) 誓約 'covenant trial by pledge' between the sibling gods Susanoo and Amaterasu, 'Let each of us swear, and produce children'. Kotodama is a central concept in Japanese mythology, Shinto, and Kokugaku. Kotodama is related with Japanese words such as kotoage 言挙 'words raised up invoke the magical power of words', kotomuke 言向 'directed words cause submission though the power of words', and jumon 呪文 'magic spell magic words incantation'. These two kanji were used interchangeably in the name Kotoshironushi 事代主 or 言代主, an oracular kami mentioned in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. The etymology of kotodama is uncertain, but one explanation correlating words and events links two Japanese words pronounced koto: this 言 'word words speech' and 事 'situation circumstances state of affairs occurrence event incident'. This field takes the Japanese gojūon phonology as the mystical basis of words and meanings, in rough analogy to Hebrew Kabbalah. In contrast, the unvoiced kototama pronunciation especially refers to kototamagaku ( 言霊学, 'study of kotodama'), which was popularized by Onisaburo Deguchi in the Oomoto religion. This Japanese compound kotodama combines koto 言 'word speech' and tama 霊 'spirit soul' (or 魂 'soul spirit ghost') voiced as dama in rendaku. The notion of kotodama presupposes that sounds can magically affect objects, and that ritual word usages can influence our environment, body, mind, and soul. English translations include 'soul of language', 'spirit of language', 'power of language', 'power word', ' magic word', and 'sacred sound'. 'word spirit/soul') refers to the Japanese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names. JSTOR ( November 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. from the University of Tsukuba.Īrtist/Associate Professor at the University of Electro-Communications.This article needs additional citations for verification. University of Tsukuba (master’s program in Art and Design)Ģ000 Completed doctoral program in Art, received Ph.D. Hokkaido University (Division of Physics.).ġ995 M.A. Kodama’s works, which are visually dynamic and sometimes subtly change without being noticed, are exhibited in galleries, museums, and public spaces in Japan and overseas.īorn in Japan in 1970. In recent years, based on the principle of indirect light, she has presented kinetic light artworks “Lattice Window Series,” in which image of colored light changes slowly as if it melts into a lattice.

She has presented interactive works in ”Bouncing Star Ball Project,” in which people interact with images projected in space by moving their bodies while using a ball.

In parallel with her ferrofluid art project, Kodama has been creating works that use various media. The contradictory nature of ferrofluid (hard/soft, beautiful/ugly, growth/atrophy, attraction/repulsion, and rise against gravity/fall due to gravity) can communicate similar contradictory concepts and ideas in living organisms. The expressions in her ferrofluid sculptures exist in the generation of organic forms and movement using ferrofluid, to present growing forms, contraction, rhythm, composition of curved surface and light, and emerging subtle/dynamic textures. Since 2000, Kodama has been working on a ferrofluid art project that she named “Protrude, Flow”. Sachiko Kodama links emergence phenomena with plastic art to create mixed media works that explore the relationship between forms/motion and vision/light.

Kodama japanese