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Introducing, Keiken ✨

Keiken is a multidisciplinary artist collective based between London and Berlin, co-founded by Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori and Isabel Ramos in 2015 after meeting at Falmouth University, where they studied Fine Art. Keiken’s collective name is taken from the Japanese word for experience; the lived experience being an idea at the core of their practice. They are collaboratively building and imagining a Metaverse to simulate new structures and ways of existing and to test-drive possible futures.

They create new and speculative worlds through filmmaking, gaming, installation, Extended Reality, blockchain and performance. Through these varied mediums they explore how societal introjection governs the way we feel, think and perceive.

‘From the very beginning of our collaborative practice we have always aimed to push the boundaries of what our understanding of reality actually is.’ - Tanya Cruz, It’s Nice That

For Keiken, world-building is at the core of their collaborative process. For a world to thrive it must encompass diverse perspectives and modes of existence. This is reflected in their multidimensional approach to constructing and envisioning potential futures.

In 2021 Keiken were awarded the CHANEL Next Prize, an international award to catalyse innovation across arts and culture. Developed to provide an emerging generation of creative risk-takers with resources to tackle ambitious new projects.

Past Works 🌐

With a deep understanding of the value of cross-pollination, Keiken takes great pride in working alongside a diverse range of collaborators, including programmers, voiceover artists, animators, and architects, among others. The resulting projects provide evidence of their limitless creativity and talent for world-building, as well as their commitment to nurturing meaningful partnerships that allow for the realisation of shared artistic vision.

Feel My Metaverse, 2019 → 2020

Analysing contemporary belief systems, Feel My Metaverse, plays on our understanding of reality and the idea that we can create our own future through the stories we collectively believe in. It contemplates how individuals can be required to trust, suffer and live in realities that they intuitively disagree with. The work critiques the disconnection of monopolising desires of corporate and futurist visions in relation to inequality and the climate crisis. It also explores technology as an emancipatory tool, deconstructing physical limitations through sensory understanding and elevating unheard voices.

Bet(a) Bodies, 2021

Bet(a) Bodies is an interactive installation centring a wearable haptic womb with sound, which explores the maternal instinct of eternal love, nurture, care and the idea that when we are born our environment is completely new and could become anything.

Bet(a) Bodies is inspired by a previous durational performance by Keiken in which performers of different ages, gender expressions, sex and cultural backgrounds intuitively responded to live generative sound whilst wearing silicone pregnancy bumps. Their visceral and emotional reactions to the experience of wearing the pregnancy bumps made it clear that regardless of gender expression, sex, cultural background and age, everyone felt embodied, attuned and had emotional connections to their silicone belly.

Wisdoms for Love 3.0, 2021

Wisdoms for Love 3.0 explores and maps out different feelings and beliefs in the contemporary consciousness. It considers wisdom as a tool for growth and proposes it as a form of currency to transact with that could be applied to the blockchain and integrated into future Web3 technologies, creating alternative definitions of wealth for the ‘life’ game. It also explores new ways to gamify art amongst the rise of blockchain technology.

Click here to play 🎮

The Web3 native project, Wisdoms for Neknel, serves as both a natural extension and a practical embodiment of the ideas presented in Wisdoms for Love 3.0. Beyond being a mere proposal, we are actively developing Wisdom Vessel NFTs, which will generate $WISDOM, a genuine cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain.

The Life Game, 2021

The Life Game is an interactive film series following a protagonist called ME, who finds themselves lost, lonely and surrounded by self-centered technologies. The series unravels their whirlwind relationship with their digital twin, MI, as they fall deep into a boundless Metaverse. ME metamorphosises both the unknown and the forgotten.

The Life Game explores the potential of gamified film, particularly in relation to blockchain technology and how we consume digital assets. The series explores different technologies that could exist in the Metaverse that both hinder and emancipate from ongoing journeys of finding oneself.

Current Works 🔮

Morphogenic Angels, 2023

Morphogenic Angels is produced as part of Keiken’s residency at Somerset House. In this computer-generated film, Keiken uses game engines to probe post-human possibilities and imagine a future world that is very different to our current reality. The film is the latest expression of Keiken’s artistic quest to explore technology’s impact on consciousness.

Morphogenic Angels stems from Keiken’s new prototype role-playing game, where augmented humans, now called Angels, battle the elements and fall in love with post-human capabilities.

Morphogenic Angels has served as a catalyst for Keiken to innovate and develop new technologies that enhance their ideas and processes when working within a game engine.

‘We have created our own dynamic camera system where you just seamlessly flow between gameplay and cutscenes. But you don't get any motion sickness. So a huge audience could watch it as if it's a film, whilst also playing it as a game.’ - Hana Omori, Somerset House

Morphogenic Angels is set in Neknel, which leaves the possibility that the $WISDOM currency and economy being created in Wisdoms for Neknel, could eventually become part of the gameplay.

Wisdoms for Neknel, 2023

Wisdoms for Neknel takes the ideas that Keiken were exploring in their project Wisdoms for Love 3.0 and brings them 1000 years forward into Neknel.

Wisdoms for Neknel is a gamified exploration of a speculative reality where $WISDOM is a currency. This Web3 native project employs artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to test-drive possible futures, resulting in a collectable generative NFT collection.

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