IKEUCHI AND skeletonics collaboration MPS-15sk"Multi"

A leading global beauty brand was looking to leverage cyber art aficionados as a tribe to drive brand advocacy. To engage with the tribe, we were tasked to explore the cyber art world in China and Japan, and identify opportunities for creatives to build a long-term program for credible and meaningful brand engagement.

We began with some quick yet thorough research on the cultural landscape of Cyberart to isolate residual codes and aesthetic elements while uncovering key shifts in the cyber art world. Rather than focusing on dark techno-dystopia loaded with exoticizing cliches, we believed the most compelling way forward for the brand was to create futures inspired by Asian tradition, nature and science. To tangibly realize this ambition, we enlisted award-winning sci-fi writers to help conjure up these alternative futures. We then spoke to sci-fi columnists to explore cultural drivers behind emergent genres like Solarpunk and Afro Futurism. This was further supplemented with cultural analysis on artworks offering different perspectives of the future such as Liam Young's Planet City and Dabeiyuzhou's Buddha Cyborg to name a few.

The research successfully informed two future-facing strategic territories and there are creative teams working as we speak to develop soon-to-be-launched engagement programmes and brand activations. Fancy the notion of Asian sci-fi? Why not give Sri-Lanka sci-fi writer Yudhanjaya Wijeratne a whirl while you're at it!

In collaboration with Virtue