22 April - 7 May 2025
Location: Modal
Event Type: In-person
Price: Free
Keiken will delve into themes of interconnectedness, perception, and immersion. Drawing from their expansive worldbuilding practice, Keiken will explore how relationships, energy, and sensory experience shape reality—both in digital and physical space. With a keen focus on exploring how we translate emotional and tactile perception into a virtual realm, Worldbuilding and the Nature of Reality will seek to deepen their research & development of an intimate, sensory-driven gaming experience.
This new work in development will form a key branch of their expansive worldbuilding project Morphogenic Angels and is informed by their deep and ongoing connections to marginalised communities across Japan. Through their ongoing interest in sensory and perceptual understanding, Keiken will aim to create a gaming experience inspired by a key collaborator and deaf-blind queer artist, Sakura Sky. This current inquiry seeks to bridge sensory and communication gaps with Sakura Sky whilst also fostering empathy, understanding, and direct interaction for players through innovative technology.
Save the date
26 April, 12:00pm -3:00pm: Morphogenic Angels, Chapter 1 – play-through
07 May, 6:00 – 8:30pm: Keiken in-conversation + Q&A
Commons
This event is part of Commons, a unique programme fostering innovative approaches to digital practice, inviting digital practitioners to draw upon new opportunities for collaborating, making and resourcing. Selected artists have been invited to showcase recent works whilst developing new and ambitious projects within a community of artists, researchers and technologists.
Commons is a joint commitment by Abandon Normal Devices and the School of Digital Arts (SODA) to platform emerging art forms and push the boundaries of digital practice, devised as a prompt to rethink our approaches to digital practices and ask if we can develop new models for commissioning, experiencing, interpreting and preserving digital art that reflect the inherent values of digital culture.
Launching in April 2025, the programme will offer access to resources and expertise at SODA that will support the bold visions of practitioners working at the intersection of art and technology. Audiences will have the opportunity to see works-in-progress as they evolve, making the processes of dialogue, experimentation and iteration in digital art practice visible as part of the showcase.
Over the spring and summer of 2025, through Commons, we will invite digital artist Jazmin Morris and artist collective Keiken to showcase a selection of their work, offering a glimpse into their artistic practices and inquiries for visitors throughout the duration of their respective shows. Through both presentations and showcases, Keiken and Jazmin Morris will hold space for a more inclusive and participatory exchange of knowledge and experiences with visitors. They will work closely with a hyper-local community of students, academics and local groups, delving into the conceptual, technical, political and collaborative aspects of creating immersive digital worlds.
This programme is a collaboration between Abandon Normal Devices (AND) and Modal gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Digital Arts (SODA). AND is supported with public funding from Arts Council England.
