180 Studios and Fact present the new exhibition Future Shock with mind-bending artworks by 14 artists - Ryoichi Kurokawa, UVA, Caterina Barbieri and Ruben Spini, Lawrence Lek, Actual Objects, Gener8ion, Weirdcore, Gaika, NONOTAK, Ben Kelly, Hamill Industries, Ib Kamara, Ibby Njoya, Object Blue and Natalia Podgorska - employing cutting-edge technologies. 

As its title suggests, Future Shock provides a rare immersive experience reformulating our sensation at the boundaries between virtual and physical and speculating about the future of technologies. The artworks are not only existing in a digital format on a screen, they expand throughout the physical space, while audiences are engaged in virtual realms and become a part of the works.

Ryoichi Kurokawa’s Subassemblies immediately invites audiences to the captivating environment. Using the 3D digital mapping technique, Subassemblies articulates urban and natural ruins where those two antagonistic environments are juxtaposed, fragmented and merged together. As it's installed with two screens facing each other, the audiences are situated somewhere in the Subassemblies, between digital and physical, urban and natural, or present and catastrophic future.

Subassemblies by Ryoichi Kurokawa

The corridor to the basement is turned into a borderline of physical and virtual by UVA's work Topologies. Using the kinetic structures and laser lights, it draws the lines and faces in the air and bisects the space. Moving through a mystic, illusory space Topologies creates, audiences on board for awe-inspiring experiences.

Topologies by UVA

In the maze-like exhibition place, an artwork guides audiences one toward another. Lawrence Lek’s virtual film Theta imagines a bleak future smart city. This short animation depicts a story of post Anthropocene with a driverless car running ceaselessly after a disaster hit the world. On the other side of the exhibition, Weirdcore’s site-specific installation, Subconscious immerses people in a colour patterned room and pounding music. Columns, another site-specific artwork by Ben Kelly, gives stunning sensory experiences with an electronic soundtrack by Scanner. The ordinary basement space is reconstructed into the abstract, geometric journey with Ben Kelly’s installation. 

Subconscious by Weirdcore

The most fascinating thing about the exhibition is the wide range of visualisation techniques using generative or interactive algorithms, artificial intelligence or holographic projections as well as the diversity of imagination each artist conceptualise. 

What Melissa Said by object blue & Natalia Podgórska

Daydream V.6 by NONOTAK also presents one of the particular ways to experiment with visual and audio elements distorting the sensation in the time and space. The repetitive patterns of white geometrics become a deceptive three-dimensional space as it’s implemented with multiple layers of projecting screens.

Daydream V.6 by NONOTAK

Meanwhile, Hamil Industries’ Vortex grips audiences’ with its interactive light and spatial sound. The gigantic octagon-shaped installation generates smoke rings occupying the space. It blurs the surroundings around us and allows us to plunge into the futuristic environment.

Vortex by Hamil Industries

You also can see Vigil by Caterina Barbieri, Convo 2.2 Complex Confessional by Gaika, Neo Surf by GENER8TION, Vicky by Actual Objects, What Melissa Said by object blue & Natalia Podgórska and Mustafa by Ibby Njoya.

Future Shock is on now at 180 the Strand, London and runs to 28th August 2022.