This week I explore the Ozone project by the art collective based in Berlin and London, KeiKen, who took over Hek’s Instagram page last Tuesday. HeK (House of electronic arts in Basel, CH) invited the collective as part of the lockdown initiative, #HekNetWorks which supports artists’ net-based projects created during the pandemic.
For the event, Keiken launched the Ozone filter, a new Instagram filter through which users could practice meditation connecting with their surrounding environment. The filter generates an augmented reality where the environment is layered onto the users’ face appearing as one entity. The project has been presented as the Ozone Layering Method for which Keiken led Livestream lessons. The collective taught how to use the filter (you can find it on both Hek and Keiken’s Instagram pages) to reach our higher selves through the digital spiritual practice. From the Ozone Layering Method steps: “users must practice still or with slow movements whilst their environment moves around them.” You can practice anywhere, but the best effects are obtained when outside.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-9af0bFKft/
If you use the filter in the open air, your surrounding reflects onto your face. I thought that having the sky on my face was a gorgeous idea, and I decided to try the Ozone filter. As soon as I tried it and had the sky mapped onto my forehead, a song popped up in my mind, “Il Cielo in Una Stanza” (The Sky in a Room) by Gino Paoli (1960). This song was used in 2018 by the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson for a performance co-commissioned by Artes Mundi and National Museum of Wales, “The Sky in a Room” (3rd Feb – 11th Mar 2018 at the National Museum of Cardiff). In a video, the artist said: “Gino Paoli wrote about being in a space that suddenly transforms into endless woods, the ceiling becomes sky with stars etc. […] and everything becomes, transforms.”
Therefore, when outdoor using Keiken’s Ozone filter, your head (the walls) clears and becomes sky. The result is potentially endless and pure content that occupies our minds in the digital reality we inhabit while using Instagram. Definitely a beautiful way to use social media during such an uncertain time!
After the takeover of Hek’s Instagram page last week, Keiken announced they will launch a new filter every Tuesday of the lockdown. Today is Tuesday, so stay tuned, meditate, and visit @_Keiken_ to find out what’s next!
