Lawrence Lek’s first feature-length film, AIDOL 爱道, is a CGI fantasy that forms the sequel to his acclaimed film Geomancer, 2017. Deploying 3D rendering and video gaming software, AIDOL tells the story of Diva – a fading superstar preparing for a comeback performance at the 2065 'eSports Olympics' – and Geo, an AI with artistic yearnings. Set in a smoke-and-mirrors realm of fantastical architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, AIDOL revolves around the long and complex struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence. Fame – in all its allure and emptiness – is set against the bigger contradictions of a post-AI world, a world where originality is sometimes no more than an algorithmic trick and where machines have the capacity for love and suffering. Contemporary anxieties and fixations – the rise of AI, the formulaic dictates of celebrity, the hegemony of technological giants – are refracted through a quixotic prism. Accompanied by a score composed and orchestrated by the artist and produced using 3D rendering, gaming software and motion capture technology, AIDOL builds on a sequence of CGI creations in which Lek draws on the language of videogames, science fiction, music videos and corporate animations. The result is a shifting and seductive virtual reality, depicting aspects of modern South-East Asia. From megabrands to super-casinos to cultural persecution and underground resistance, all are allegorized into a futuristic otherworld.

- text by Lawrence Lek