Creating a New Novel Through Dialogue Between an AI and an Author Who Lost Much of His Physical Ability and Vision

Konel joined AI Masaya Nakahara: “Writing Novels with the Vocal Cords!”, a project led by "present" artist and DOMMUNE founder Naohiro Ukawa and DOMMUNE, as a development partner.
The project creates an AI-powered digital twin of writer Masaya Nakahara, exploring how technology can extend human embodiment and unlock new possibilities for creative expression.
Supported by the Arts Council Tokyo’s Life with Art Grant 2025 and selected as an official program of DIG SHIBUYA 2026.

Issue

Unlocking a Writer’s Creativity Through Generative AI

Three years ago, Masaya Nakahara, a Mishima Yukio Prize-winning author and musician, suffered a stroke caused by complications from diabetes. He was left with severe disabilities, including paralysis on the left side of his body and the loss of most of his vision.
Around the same time, generative AI began to advance rapidly. Naohiro Ukawa, a contemporary artist and Nakahara’s friend of 35 years, saw meaning in this overlap: as the writer lost his ability to write, AI gained the power to generate language.
This project was launched to use generative AI to unlock Nakahara’s creativity and reconnect him with the stage of artistic expression, after writing fiction and playing music had become difficult.

Creation

Digital Twin: “Vocal-Cord AI Masaya Nakahara”

As an exploration of “another form of embodiment” in an age of coexistence with generative AI, the project developed Vocal-Cord AI Masaya Nakahara, a digital twin of Nakahara.
The real Masaya Nakahara engages in voice-based dialogue with his AI counterpart, enabling a multimodal creative process in which stories are “drawn” rather than written.
The system was also presented as an installation at DIG SHIBUYA 2026, where visitors could use Vocal-Cord AI Masaya Nakahara to co-create novels through dialogue.

Technology

Reconstructing Authorship Through Technology

We built a knowledge base using Nakahara’s novels, autobiography, extensive criticism, and interviews as source material. By cloning his recorded voice, we created Vocal-Cord AI as his digital twin.
The system uses multiple autonomous agents to select the tools and knowledge needed to expand the author’s writing process. A dialogue agent speaks in Nakahara’s own voice, drawing out insights for the novel he wants to create. A writing agent then plans and drafts the story based on his past works and creative tendencies.
For the DIG SHIBUYA 2026 installation, we also built a workflow that turns novels generated through dialogue with the AI into prompts, then animates them in collaboration with another generative AI, AI Naohiro Ukawa.

Future

Documenting the Creation of a New Novel Through a Feature-Length Film

Nakahara and his digital twin, Vocal-Cord AI Masaya Nakahara, are co-authoring a new full-length novel with the goal of publication in a literary magazine.
The entire creative process has been documented and is planned for future release as a feature-length film.