DEATH SPIRAL is an animation that reflects on what might evolve after Takashi Murakami's conception of Superflat. In the film, various elements of otaku culture are blended, compressed, diffused and even liquified, as if compressed by intense gravitational forces. With the advent of AI, once distinct and discrete 2d imagery become something more fluid than flat, able to coalesce, intermingle and blend. In Japanese cultural critic and philosopher Hiroki Azuma's influential book "Otaku: Japan's Database Animals" refers to engaging with cultural products as databases of elements rather than coherent narratives. Otaku select and combine these elements, reflecting a fragmented approach to media that influences both consumption and production in postmodern society.
With anyone now able to select, combine and remix their preferred traits and tropes, we enter something that no longer separates audiences and creators, where every token is equivalent unless specifically weighted in a prompt, something more drastic than a flattening but more akin to a vortex.
The first iteration of the project in the form of an animated 4K video and a digital print was first showed at "Only Losers Left Alive" at Yeo Workshop Singapore- 13-30 July 2021
https://www.are.na/brandon-tay/death-spiral
