Shu Lea Cheang
UKI
Scifi Viral Alt-Reality Cinema
Moviemento Kino
NOTICE, external Space: Moviemento cinema, OK-Platz 1, 4020 Linz.
Thur, 7. Sept, 21:00 - Premiere
STWST48 Pre-Glow simultaneous screening held in Moviemento Linz and Berlin
With remote network Q&A with UKI director Shu Lea Cheang present at Moviemento Linz and UKI producer Jürgen Brüning present at Moviemento Berlin
More Screenings:
Fri, 8. Sept, 21:30
Sat, 9. Sept, 18:00
Sun, 10. Sept, 16:00
“Set your electric sheep free range. It is 2060, what do you do with expired humanoids?”
UKI’s storyline unfolds as we follow a defunct replicant REIKO dumped on Etrashville - a vast dump for tech - who tries to pull themselves back together with the help of its transgenic inhabitants. A virtual BioNet owned by GENOM Co. has occupied human bodies and re-engineered red blood cells into nano-computing self-generated orgasms. Parallel to REIKO’s trajectory is that of an infected city in which a besieged diner gathers the infected to exchange own orgasm data for fresher, intenser, mutual orgasm. The diner is also the meeting-place for hackers who traverse time and space, bringing in news of protest and manifestation while uncovering GENOM’s bio-engineering scheme. As the plot thickens, REIKO’s body is coded, recoded and finally collapses to re-emerge as UKI the Virus. Setting back GENOM's plans, UKI the Virus seems on the brink of swarming through the infected city to liberate the red blood cells. Through virus Becoming, viral Love, we find a way to reclaim our viral bodies.
UKI, 80:00 Min, 2023.
Story/Script/Direction: Shu Lea Cheang
Produced by Shu Lea Cheang and Jürgen Brüning
A Jürgen Brüning FilmProduktion
Major funding provided by The Guggenheim Fellowship (USA), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Germany)
UKI Website
http://u-k-i.co
UKI Press Kit
http://u-k-i.co/cms/press
UKI Trailer
Shu Lea Cheang earned the badass cyberpunk filmmaker credit with her 2000 cult smash I.K.U. in which sensual cyborgs fuck for information and pleasure. The film, heavily influenced by Blade Runner, is perhaps the first cyperpunk movie to radically explore the possibilities of cybernetic sexualities. The pioneer in the field of media art embraced internet and hacking culture early on, recognizing both its capacity to enslave as well as liberate, mixing that with queer and sexually explicit imagery bringing something new to the cultural landscape. She is considered a pioneer net artist with BRANDON(1998-1999), commissioned and collected by The Guggenheim Museum New York. In 2019, Cheang presented Taiwan with 3x3x6, a mixed media installation at Venice Biennale. With her 4 feature films- FRESH KILL (1994), I.K.U.(2000), FLUIDØ (2017) and UKI (2023), Cheang is crating a genre of her own - Scifi New Queer Cinema.
DOCUMENTATION
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