A rare double feature of pioneering media artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang's 90-minute director's cut of I.K.U. and its seldom-screened 2023 follow-up UKI, co-presented by SECS Fest! Known for her groundbreaking and transgressive works including the cyberfeminist classic Fresh Kill (newly added to the Criterion Collection), Cheang has long challenged boundaries of genre, identity, and technology.
First, in I.K.U. Shu Lea Cheang probes the commodification of pleasure—and explores the seamier implications of Blade Runner—in the tale of Reiko, a robot programmed to accumulate sexual experience for a corporation in New Tokyo. Reiko morphs through seven body types to experience a variety of couplings, then returns to the company to download her accumulated “orgasm data”—and to escape from their control.
Then, Cheang merges gaming software–generated animation with live action in UKI, which finds the now-defunct replicant Reiko abandoned in E-Trashville, a giant dumping ground for technological waste. Meanwhile, a besieged diner serves as a meeting place for humans infected with red blood cells re-engineered by GENOM Corp.—and for time-traversing hackers working to uncover the company’s schemes. A parable of resilience and rebirth, UKI demonstrates the continued vitality of Cheang’s forward-thinking, boundary-pushing vision.
"I.K.U. is a phenomenon.... it crosses all categories -- geographic, physical, conceptual -- with a demented flourish. As much trans-genre as it is trans-gender, I.K.U. also wants to merge video and film into a fresh digital universe large-scale enough to overwhelm the viewer." B. Ruby Rich, author of New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut
"UKI is not just allegory or parable, but a plea for action against biowarfare and those complicit." Katherine Franco, Screen Slate
Note: There will be a 10 minute intermission in-between features. *No one under 18 admitted*