balenciaga collaboration
A 25 minute video loop with previously unreleased tracks by DJ Hell, made in collaboration with Balenciaga.

Here is a dramatic tension in his work between the real and the imagined in his use of often-appropriated digital objects to create virtual landscapes, which frequently contain elements – animals, machines, fragments of videogames – that are recognisable from our day to day life. This creates a symbiotic relationship between the digital and the real. In a very real way digital space has now become an intangible reality. The worlds built by Robak have a distinctly cinematic sensibility that hyperbolises the shine and dramatic effects of 3D rendered animation. The aesthetic of his work is supremely important, drawing the viewer into a truly alluring, indulgent and strangely gratifying environment. There is a further challenge to the void between high-art and the worlds of 3D animation and gaming, in the intersection between depiction and simulation. This can be partially attributed to the vernacular of advertising Robak is so proficient at utilising.

Feel My Metaverse
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”. 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.