UKI
Dir.: Shu Lea Cheang, 2023, Germany/US, 80', English with German subtitles
Screening
Sun., 7.12.2025
16:00
Safi Faye Hall
Free entry

Shu Lea Cheang, UKI (2023), digital film (film still). Courtesy Shu Lea Cheang and Jürgen Brüning Filmproduktion
Replicant Reiko is robbed of her own biological data and dumped in E-Trashville—a huge landfill site for electronic waste. There, Reiko is reborn as ‘UKI the Virus’ to sabotage a biosystem developed by GENOM Corporation that aims to manipulate sexual desire through pharmaceuticals. Defective humanoids, transmutants, techno-data bodies, and an infected city merge with the UKI virus. UKI is a suspenseful digital collage that combines CGI animation generated using game engines with live-action sequences and visual effects to create a polysexual, gender fluid film of extraordinary visuality. With her ‘sci-fi viral alt-reality cinema,’ Shu Lea Cheang addresses capitalist-technological mechanisms of oppression, body norms, and queer resistance. The works Red Pill and Virus Becoming, shown in the exhibition, are also part of the multimedia cosmos of UKI.