Engines of Utopia

A collaborative art exhibition curated by Sissy Misfit, powered by Rick Owens x Dr. Martens.

Powered by Dr. Martens x Rick Owens, and in celebration of the brand’s latest footwear collaboration, Sissy Misfit has curated Engines of Utopia, a one-day video art exhibition exploring how imagined futures may bleed into our realities, opening this Friday. Music producer, performer, and visual artist Sissy Misfit brought together 6 artists who all share an avant-garde vision on moving image. Known for blurring the line between reality and fantasy in her own creative outputs, Sissy challenges each artist to tackle this dichotomy in moving image only. With video as the only constraint, short films, self-portraits, and even speculative fashion editorials emerge.

Featuring work by Antre Sezgin, Aun Helden, Charlie Jimenez, GAME NOVA, Kaiden Ford, and Syntia, Engines of Utopia will take over London’s Proposition Studios on November 7th for one day only, because we all know the good things can’t last forever. Short on time, or don’t know who to check out first? Don’t fret, here’s an overview for you.

P.S. don’t forget to wear your Dr. Martens x Rick Owens boots to the show — they just released a new collection 😉

AX IN FATHOMLAND – UNBIRTHDAY by GAME NOVA
GAME NOVA’s AX IN FATHOMLAND – UNBIRTHDAY deconstructs the body through a persistently visceral two-minute exorcism. As with all of GAME NOVA’s work, the artist creates from their own speculative reality, AX Simulation, to explore themes of xeno-feminism and body-technology entanglements. The latex-clad extorist’s rivals in the pleasurely parasitic ties to their prey as the body lies as an exposed ritualistic interface, acting as the mutated curse and cure.

Sepheryn by Antre Sezgin and Syntia
Not quite human, not quite machine, Sepheryn critiques consumer desire and commodification in our realised utopias. A collaboration between Turkish Drag performer Syntia and visual artist Antre Sezgin, Sepheryhn depicts Syntia as a cosmic nymph, placed inside the lens of a commercial through stunning (yet blatantly objectifying) shots, reminiscent of retrofuturism’s Barbarella. Paired with Jtamul’s pristine sound design, the piece is a feast for our eyes, ears, and minds equally.

HER by Kaiden Ford
Kaiden Ford, a non-binary multidisciplinary artist working across performance, film, and poetry, creates immersive fantasies that dissolve the borders between reality and imagination. In HER, Ford dissects the corruption and commodification of creative identity through the lens of a body transforming into a machine, and a machine becoming body. It’s a manifesto of survival disguised as performance: HER is both captive and engine, both system and spirit. “Hello, my name is HER. I am here at your service. Please press play to continue.”

Engines by Charlie Jimenez
In Engines, Charlie Jimenez constructs a haunting micro-short set in an abandoned underworld. Shot on Super16, the film unfolds as a visual ritual of becoming, where the mechanical and the divine fuse. At its core is Phanes, a wounded intersex god reborn from fire… their body both scarred and sacred, transforming into a living engine, a vessel of light. Jimenez captures this metamorphosis and blurs the sacred and the synthetic into a single, burning vision of rebirth.

FANTASMA FEMININO/ FEMININE GHOST by Aun Helden
The Sao Paulo-based artist  Aun Helden works across the boundaries of performance, photography, and dance, exploring identity to subvert conventional perceptions of the body. FEMININE GHOST watches like a visual prayer, presenting a looping self-portrait, exploring the facets of fragility turned violent. Roses, figures, and thorns are set afire, melting just to disintegrate into their contortedly poised poses. Flies buzz between open mouths and ears, as images rapidly flash, each one succeeding the last image of deterioration.