Keiken, meaning ‘experience’ in Japanese, is a hybrid practice founded in 2015 by artists Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori, Isabel Ramos and collaborators. Based in London and Penzance, they use moving-image, new media installation, virtual/augmented reality and performative lectures to test-drive impending futures in the realms of the ‘phygital’ (physical and digital). When working collectively Keiken become part of a fluid entity, an open-source ecosystem: with interchangeable roles, collaborators shape, challenge and transform projects. Keiken have toured their performative lecture Honey, I’m Data! at IMPAKT Festival (Utrecht) and Hervisions at LUX Moving Image and Space Art + Technology (London). In March 2019 Keiken were also part of the panel Technology and its Intersections at ICA (London). They have exhibited and curated at CTM and Transmediale’s Vorspiel festival (Berlin), MIRA Festival (Barcelona) and U Studio at Tate St Ives.
Feel My Metaverse is Keiken’s first venture in creating a cinematic film, using game engines to build a fictional future, wanting to create stories that viewers can collectively believe in. “I normally make CGI animation from Cinema 4D, often taking days and weeks just to produce short sequences or footage. Whereas working with game engines, we could generate landscapes or worlds that we can continually build onto collectively to produce larger scale works,” says George, who used Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4 for the film.
The film, set in a future when climate crisis has rendered Earth inhabitable, explores the daily lives of three characters and their experiences in the multiple realities – Pome Sector (a corporate wellness world), 068 (a roleplaying VR world), and Base Reality, or what we currently know as earth. The characters navigate the challenging landscape in the world’s unforgiving points system. Keiken’s goals of unlearning norms of the current world is included in one of these realities. “In 068 you are in a constant state of learning and unlearning where you unlearn from role play by occupying different bodies and learn through connecting with your senses,” Keiken explains.
The group has also worked extensively with face filters hosted on Instagram, with the latest iteration being the Pando filter that was used during its performance in collaboration with dancer Sakeema Crook. In the performance, where the face filter is flipped and pointed at Sakeema, this merging of the physical and digital become extremely clear. Although Sakeema’s performance is intensely fluid and visceral in its own right (when viewed through our meat eyes), the filter multiplies the dancer’s body, leaving a trail of digital ghosts that is only visible through the filter. When the dancer gets close enough to your camera, the filter dons a shifting, semi-organic crown on Sakeema’s head, creating a real-life representation of the character she plays in the film.
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/keiken-feel-my-metaverse-digital-091019
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