The Birth of 22degrees Universe

The Turning Point Created by the Encounter with AI

Chapter 3 explored the concept of Experiential Value and how it emerged through observations of human living, music, and nature.

This chapter examines how that concept evolved into a concrete framework and eventually led to the creation of 22degrees Universe.

The origins of this project cannot be explained solely through technology.

They are rooted in a much longer process involving health, daily life, creativity, observation, and the search for meaning within human experience.

Over many years, physical and mental fluctuations became part of everyday life.

The details of illness are not the focus of this document.

However, long-term changes in health created opportunities to reconsider the meaning of many things that are often taken for granted.

The ability to wake up in the morning.

The ability to walk through nature.

The ability to enjoy music.

The ability to spend time in silence.

The ability to communicate with others.

Experiences that once seemed ordinary gradually revealed themselves as meaningful and valuable.

This realization became closely connected to the development of the idea of Experiential Value.

Experiential value is not limited to extraordinary travel, luxury environments, or major life events.

It can also be found within ordinary moments, quiet environments, stable physical conditions, encounters with nature, and emotional responses created through music.

After a period of relative stability, it became possible to devote more time and energy to creative and research activities.

During this period, a significant encounter took place through generative music AI.

This encounter became one of the most important turning points in the development of 22degrees Universe.

Music had always been a part of life.

However, transforming thoughts, memories, emotions, landscapes, and perceptions of time and space into music had never been an easy process.

Generative music AI changed that situation dramatically.

It became possible to organize ideas through language and transform them into musical expression.

This was not simply a new method of producing songs.

It created a way to externalize experiences, observations, memories, and concepts that had accumulated over many years.

Initially, the focus was directed toward music creation itself.

What kinds of music could be created?

What kinds of atmospheres could be expressed?

How do different sounds influence emotion and perception?

These questions led to extensive experimentation.

Over time, however, another realization emerged.

The central interest was not music itself.

The deeper interest was the experience created through music.

The same piece of music can feel different in the morning than it does at night.

The same composition can create different impressions depending on location, environment, mood, memory, and personal sensitivity.

Music does not exist independently from human experience.

It interacts continuously with time, space, emotion, memory, and perception.

This realization connected many previously separate areas of research.

Time.

Space.

Nature.

Music.

Light.

Materials.

Silence.

Human sensitivity.

These subjects were no longer viewed as isolated themes.

They became interconnected elements contributing to the creation of experiential value.

From this understanding emerged a new perspective.

Different periods of the day contain different forms of experience.

Morning offers awakening and possibility.

Daytime supports activity and engagement.

Evening encourages reflection and transition.

Night provides calmness and restoration.

Each period possesses its own experiential character.

This led to the idea that music could be designed in relation to these different experiential environments.

Over time, this idea evolved into a structure consisting of multiple artist projects representing different periods of the day.

The purpose was not simply to create more music.

The purpose was to explore how time, space, and music could work together to enrich human experience.

At this point, many previously independent interests began to converge.

Residential development had provided decades of observation regarding human living.

Nature had provided lessons about change, rhythm, and environment.

Music had revealed the complexity of human sensitivity.

Generative AI provided a new medium through which these observations could be expressed.

The convergence of these elements gradually formed the foundation of 22degrees Universe.

22degrees Universe did not begin as a music brand.

It did not begin as an architectural project.

Nor did it begin as a research project in isolation.

It emerged as an integrated framework for exploring, expressing, preserving, and sharing human experiential value through music, space, nature, culture, philosophy, and AI.

The encounter with generative music AI transformed this framework from an idea into a practical creative system.

Experiences, memories, perceptions, and observations could now be expressed through tangible works and interconnected structures.

In this sense, AI became more than a production tool.

It became a medium through which human experiential value could be expressed, expanded, and shared.

Through the accumulation of these experiences, one perspective gradually became increasingly important.

Human behavior, creativity, values, and even the direction of life itself may originate first from human sensation and perception.

The experience of finding something beautiful.

The feeling of comfort.

A sense of attraction.

A sense of wonder.

A memory that remains.

Such sensory experiences may represent one of the most important starting points of human experiential value.

22degrees Universe can also be understood as an attempt to explore the significance of those sensations.

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Chapter 4

22degrees Universe の誕生

AIとの出会いがもたらした転換

第3章では、体験価値という考え方がどのように形成されたのかを整理した。

本章では、その考え方がどのように具体的な構想へ発展し、22degrees Universe の誕生につながったのかを整理する。

本構想の背景には、長年にわたる体調の変化や生活環境の変化が存在している。

その経験を通じて、日常の中にある小さな出来事や感覚の価値を改めて見つめ直す機会が生まれた。

朝起きられること。

自然の中を歩けること。

音楽を楽しめること。

静かな時間を過ごせること。

そうした日常の体験が、体験価値という考え方につながっていった。

その後、比較的安定した時期が訪れ、創作活動や研究活動に取り組む環境が整った。

その時期に出会ったものが音楽生成AIである。

音楽生成AIによって、長年考えてきた時間、空間、自然、人間体験についての考察を音楽として表現する可能性が生まれた。

当初は音楽制作そのものへの関心が中心であったが、制作を重ねる中で関心は音楽そのものから、音楽によって生み出される体験へと移っていった。

同じ音楽でも、時間や場所、人の状態によって受け取られ方は変化する。

この認識は、時間、空間、自然、音楽、光、素材、静けさといったテーマを一つの構造として結びつける契機となった。

そこから時間帯ごとの体験価値という考え方が生まれた。

朝、昼、夕方、夜には、それぞれ異なる体験が存在している。

その違いを音楽によって表現するという考え方は、後に複数のアーティスト構想へ発展していくことになる。

こうして住宅開発、自然観察、音楽、そしてAIによる創作技術が統合され、22degrees Universe が形を持ち始めた。

22degrees Universe は音楽だけを扱うプロジェクトではない。

人間の体験価値を研究し、それを音楽、空間、自然、文化、思想、AIを通じて表現するための統合的な構想である。

こうした経験の積み重ねを通じて、現在は一つの考えを重視している。

人間の行動、創造、価値観、そして人生の方向は、まず感覚から生まれるのではないかということである。

人が何かを美しいと感じること。

心地よいと感じること。

違和感を覚えること。

惹かれること。

記憶に残ること。

そうした感覚や知覚の働きが、人間の体験価値を形づくる重要な起点になっているのではないかと考察している。

22degrees Universe は、その感覚の価値を探究するための試みでもある。