The author of "Dog" shirt was 65
Prolific pop artist, writer, and creator of "T-Shirt Engrish", Hiroki Isobe, has been found dead at the age of 65 after succumbing to terminal ennui.
The artist, who in life claimed his work went largely misunderstood, left an indelible mark on the Tokyo fashion scene with his designs adorning the torsos of many of Japan's young and trend-setting hipsters as well as number of elderly grandmothers.
While his most famous work is largely regarded as his breakout creation, "I AM DOG" in black Helvetica font on a white T-shirt, his many other manifestos remain major sellers in Tokyo fashion houses and now fetch astronomical prices on digital NFT marketplaces.
In his last interview before his death, the always cryptic Isobe remained cagey about his famous "Dog" shirt.
"Dog, you know, is representative of all humanity, or its struggle, but it has a literal meaning, you know, as well. All words have literal meanings,"
The reporter noted that he said this while watching Google Gemini generate seventeen new shirt designs during their three-minute conversation. Adding that he ended by stating the following:
"AI lacks the capacity for authentic suffering, which is why it creates so efficiently."
The artist's decline began shortly after an AI algorithm perfectly imitated his style. Critics and fans alike couldn't distinguish between Isobe's genuine works, like "Metaverse feeling? We all see the smelly happiness, isn't it?" and the AI's "Thursday banana crisis, very smile important."
His personal journal, found beside his perfectly arranged slippers, contained only a single line repeated for 183 pages:
"Even meaninglessness has been automated."
"AI lacks the capacity for authentic suffering, which is why it creates so efficiently."
His last printed work, completed manually in defiant calligraphy, showed his desperate attempt to reclaim human creativity. The shirt, which simply read "人間が作った" ("Made by Human"), was part of his final collection, where he deliberately introduced imperfections and untranslatable Japanese idioms that confused the AI attempting to replicate his style.
"The machine cannot understand 物の哀れ," he told his only remaining human assistant. "It can generate sadness but cannot feel the exquisite transience of a convenience store egg sandwich past its expiration date."
The Tokyo National Museum of Modern Existential Crisis now houses his collection in its "Obsolete Creators" wing, where his shirts are displayed alongside other artifacts of pre-automation creative expression.
His most valuable piece, "Salad Dreams Only Yesterday Maybe," hangs in climate-controlled isolation. It is the last shirt whose randomness was genuinely unintentional.
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