“From a Caledonian heart of darkness to a supernova Scotia? The documentary fiction spirals between the role of the catastrophic Darien Scheme in the late 17th century in the founding of the UK, when Scotland failed to colonise part of present-day Panama, and the contemporary disintegration of the union. In a somewhat wild extrapolation of the race to become the Scotland’s first vertical satellite launch station currently playing out between Sutherland Space Port and the Shetland Space Centre, independence is speculatively framed as an exercise of escapology, a jailbreak and exodus to an orbital space habitat, with all the risks and dangers that entails. The loose plot follows a game designer from a fictional games company called ‘Trancestar North‘ who, in attempting to lift the dark spell cast by Darien, models a counter-future by ingesting cosmism, the history of racial capitalism and the demise of Empire into T-Divine, the geopolitics simulator of the game engine. She follows the Brexit algorithm as it runs to its logical conclusion.” (Flatlines)

@ Hyperdub

“Escapology is just one entry point into of the Astro-Darien universe, which had begun to surface in 2021 as a 2 week audiovisual installation on the main dance floor at club space, Corsica Studios in South London and as a multi-channel diffusion on the 50 speaker acousmonium at the invitation of INA-GRM in Paris, the institution founded in 1951 by the musique concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, composer Pierre Henry and the engineer Jacques Poullin.

The artwork for both Escapology and Astro-Darien was produced by Kode9’s long-time collaborators Lawrence Lek (digital world design), and Optigram (typography and gfx).” (Hyperdub)

@ Hyperdub

“AIDOL is a CGI fantasy that tells the story of a fading superstar, Diva, who enlists an aspiring AI songwriter to mount a comeback performance at the 2065 eSports Olympic finale. Set in a realm of spectacular architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, AIDOL revolves around the long and evolving struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence. Fame – in all its allure and emptiness – is set against the contradictions of a post-AI world, where originality is just an algorithmic trick and machines have the capacity for love and suffering. The result is a shifting and seductive virtual reality, punctuated by Diva’s songs and the voice of Kode9 as the unforgiving label boss. The film renders this future society as a world that exists both as a shimmering utopia and as an automated dystopia.

Lawrence’s soundtrack is a delicate lattice; complex, opaque and entirely synthetic. Diva’s yearning vocals, sung in English and Mandarin, cast classical melodies over billowing, intricately arranged songs. Her voice is created with a Vocaloid voice synthesiser, giving it an uncanny feeling. Her confessional lyrics draw empathy from the listener, as she reveals her fears of becoming an irrelevant influencer, obsolete in a machine-driven age. The instrumental tracks of the album, produced together with composer Seth Scott, are elegiac and beautiful, hybridising the classic film score, folding in patterns from game soundtracks, vaporwave, and ambient fourth world music.” (Hyperdub)

@ Hyperdub