From June 16, 2026, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo will present HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: EXTINCTION. Among the approximately 60 silver gelatin photographs on view, one work stands apart from the rest. It is CAMERA MAN.

CAMERA MAN 2026 | Photo: Masatomo Moriyama | Courtesy of JINS

At first glance, it resembles a pair of glasses—or perhaps an unusual optical device. Yet CAMERA MAN is neither a camera nor a wearable gadget in any conventional sense.

Instead, it embodies one of Hiroshi Sugimoto's most fundamental questions:

Can a human being become a camera?

The work was realized through the collaboration of eyewear brand JINS and optical manufacturer Sigma, bringing Sugimoto's conceptual vision into physical form.

The Human Eye Has No Shutter

Throughout his career, Hiroshi Sugimoto has continually examined the act of seeing itself.

From his Seascapes, which reduce the world to sea and sky, to his Theaters, where the duration of an entire film is condensed into a single exposure, his works have explored perception, memory, and time through the medium of photography.

CAMERA MAN extends that inquiry.

According to Sugimoto, the camera is a device modeled after the structure of the human eye.

The lens corresponds to the crystalline lens.
The aperture functions as the pupil.
The film serves as the retina.

Yet one crucial element is missing. Human eyes do not possess a shutter. From this observation emerged a radical idea:

What if a shutter could be installed inside the human eye?

CAMERA MAN is the result of that thought experiment.

Why It Took JINS and Sigma

What makes this project remarkable is that it goes far beyond corporate sponsorship. The work exists because of the specific expertise of two companies operating in different but closely related fields.

For decades, JINS has developed eyewear designed to mediate the relationship between the human face and vision. Its expertise lies not only in frames and fit, but in understanding how people see.

Sigma, meanwhile, has built its reputation on lenses, cameras, and advanced optical engineering, combining precision manufacturing with a deep understanding of light.

Glasses and cameras belong to different industries, yet both are fundamentally devices for seeing.

In CAMERA MAN, those two worlds converge. The result is what Sugimoto calls a "human camera"—a device that appears to insert a shutter into the very act of human vision.

Three Minutes of Darkness, One Second of Light

The experience of CAMERA MAN is deliberately simple. The wearer spends three minutes in complete darkness. Then, using a shutter release operated by hand, they trigger a one-second exposure. For a brief moment, the outside world appears before the eyes. Nothing is recorded onto film. Instead, the image is retained only within memory.

Sugimoto compares that single second to the span of a human life.

Assuming an average lifespan of eighty-five years, the preceding three minutes correspond to approximately fifteen thousand years—the length of time during which human civilization emerged and developed.

Seen this way, CAMERA MAN is not designed as a photographic apparatus. It is a device for experiencing time itself.

Not a Camera, but a Machine for Thinking About Time

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: EXTINCTION examines the status of silver gelatin photography in an age dominated by digital images. The traditional techniques that shaped photography for more than a century now face an uncertain future. Yet CAMERA MAN addresses questions that extend beyond photographic technology.

How do humans perceive the world?
How are memories formed and preserved?
What does it mean to experience time?

By dissolving the boundary between eyewear and camera, the work challenges assumptions that are usually taken for granted. It is simultaneously an artwork, an optical instrument, and a philosophical proposition.

Through the collaboration of JINS and Sigma, Sugimoto's CAMERA MAN becomes more than a machine modeled after the human eye.

It becomes a device through which we may reconsider what it means to be human.