A Duet Across Time
Sitting across from Ryuichi Sakamoto in Paris—and what it taught me about the future of emotional technology.
Imagine this.
You’re sitting at a piano. The room is dim, hushed. On the polished surface in front of you, a soft projection reveals the image of a man—his hands moving across the keys with quiet precision. You see his fingers. His breath. His eyes, focused on the keyboard.
You’ve never met him. And yet, here you are, playing alongside him.
Last week in Paris, I sat down at that piano. And though I don’t even know how to play, I found myself joining in—awkwardly, emotionally—with one of the most iconic musicians of our time: Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Sakamoto, who passed away in March 2023 at the age of 71, was hailed as “arguably the best-known and most successful Japanese musician in the world.” I never met him, but I knew his music. Sitting there, watching him play, looking into his eyes as he focused on the keys—it was one of the most intimate experiences I’ve had with technology.
And that intimacy is by intention.
This was MirrorFugue, a project by Xiao Xiao—the Chinese-born American technologist, artist, and pianist who leads the Institute for Future Technologies, the transdisciplinary innovation hub of Pôle Léonard de Vinci in Paris. Xiao invited me to join her on stage at the De Vinci Festival, a celebration of art, science, and entrepreneurship, where we spoke about the intersection of creativity and innovation.
But this post isn’t about the talk or the festival. It’s about Xiao, and the quiet power of her work.
Technology with Intention
MirrorFugue is a piano-based interface that lets you see and play alongside musicians — sometimes from across the world, and sometimes from across time. Built on the metaphor of the reflective surface of a grand piano, it uses synchronized projections of a pianist’s hands and body as they play. In one mode, you see their hands mirrored on the keys in front of you. Both modes allow you to feel like you're playing together — even if the performance was recorded years ago.
At its heart, MirrorFugue turns a solo instrument into a shared space—connecting musicians not just through sound, but through gesture, timing, and emotion.
Xiao’s work moves beyond what technology can do, and into the realm of what it should feel like. MirrorFugue doesn’t simulate a pianist—it invites their presence. Built on a digitally controlled player piano, it synchronizes projected video and body language with sound and touch. You see not just the notes, but the intention behind them.
“It’s not just about the convenience of streams of information,” Xiao said in her TED talk. "But how you put them together... and how you leave space for the imagination to fill in the blanks. That's when something magical happens. It stops being data. It becomes a present, visceral experience."
And this presence—it can do something remarkable: it can deepen relationships, even across time.
What Happens When You Add Emotion to Technology?
Xiao and her collaborators ran a study to understand this deeper. 28 adult participants were invited to sit with MirrorFugue and experience four different pianists—some alive, some deceased, some professionals, some amateurs. A few even watched recordings of their own younger selves.
The findings were powerful—and measurable: One hundred percent of participants reported increased emotional connection after the experience—even with strangers. Over half of them spontaneously played along with the projected pianist, without being prompted—describing the moment as a kind of duet or “conversation across time.” Physiological data confirmed this: participants with closer relationships to the pianist showed significant increases in heart rate and movement. And even participants who had only heard of a deceased pianist reported deep emotional reflection and, in some cases, tears.
"Even though participants knew they were playing with a recording," Xiao explained, "many described the moment as a kind of two-way communication. They felt someone was there with them."
Beyond Digital Memorials
What Xiao's project suggests is that our current approach to digital memory—archived Facebook profiles, static Instagram grids—might be fundamentally limited. Perhaps memory doesn't have to be something we merely preserve; perhaps it can be something we actively engage with.
In her research paper, Xiao wrote: "Results showed that participants felt a strong presence of past pianists, with some experiencing the illusion of two-way communication and an overall increase in connection….These findings suggest that telepresence technologies can foster connections with the past, offering spaces for memory recall, self-reflection, and a sense of 'time travel.'"
This speaks to something deeper than nostalgia. In grief psychology, there's a concept called "continuing bonds"—the idea that healthy mourning isn't about "letting go" of the deceased, but about transforming the relationship. A recent review of over 70 studies found that maintaining such bonds—through memories, rituals, or imagined interactions—can support identity, emotional resilience, and even post-traumatic growth (Hewson et al., 2024). Rather than prolonging grief, these connections often offer presence, comfort, and meaning.
What if technology could support this process? What if, instead of scrolling through silent photos of someone no longer here, you could sit beside them again in a shared activity—not simulating them, but creating a space where memory becomes dynamic?
This approach demands a shift in how we think about technology’s purpose. Rather than replacing human experience, technology might instead hold space for it—creating contexts where our emotions, memories, and connections can unfold in new ways.
The Human in the Machine
At one point during the day, Xiao sat down at the piano herself. On the polished surface in front of her, a soft projection appeared: a younger version of Xiao, her hands moving across the keys with the earnest focus of youth. I filmed the moment, transfixed. It wasn’t just a technological feat—it was a conversation across time.
Later, as I listened to her speaking on the stage, I kept thinking: we need more people like Xiao. Artist-technologists. Builders with soul. Designers who don’t just optimize for efficiency—but for emotion.
In a world increasingly driven by code, algorithms, and interfaces that prize speed over substance, Xiao and her students at the institute remind us of what’s missing: feeling. Intuition. Presence.
We live in a time that is technologically advanced—but emotionally starved.
Longing, memory, connection, grief—these are not machine feelings. They are human. And the role of technology isn’t to simulate them, but to hold space for them.
That’s what MirrorFugue gave me: not just a demonstration, but an experience. A moment of unexpected intimacy with a musician I respect—Ryuichi Sakamoto—someone I thought I’d only ever know from afar. And yet there I was, sharing a bench with him.
That’s the kind of magic that technology, when guided by artistry, can unlock.
This is where business artistry comes in. It’s the concept I’ve been shaping for years: an approach to work that integrates the emotional intelligence of the artist—empathy, imagination, comfort with ambiguity—into the structured world of business and leadership.
The most visionary creators—Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, Dieter Rams, Erwin Braun—understood this. They knew that technology must serve people, not the other way around. And that design, when done with intention, becomes more than function. It becomes feeling.
As I left Xiao’s demonstration that afternoon in Paris, the image of her playing with her younger self stayed with me. It felt like the perfect embodiment of what business artistry aspires to achieve: a graceful integration of technical precision and emotional depth, where neither is sacrificed for the other.
Her work in technology, like mine in business, points toward a shared future—one in which our most sophisticated tools don’t flatten our humanity, but amplify it. A future where utility and beauty, logic and longing, efficiency and emotion can coexist.
That’s the future I believe in.
That’s the kind of work worth building.
Follow the Institute for Future Technoloy here, or Xiao Xiao here.
If you enjoy Business Artistry and think a friend or colleague would benefit from it, please share it with them. Just click on the button.
I’d love to hear from you—whether it’s your thoughts, suggestions, critiques, or even cool stories and ideas. Feel free to drop me a note at nir [at] theartian.com, leave a comment, or send me a message.
Thanks
Nir