IKU

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Movie
Original title IKU
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese , English
Publishing year 2000
length 74 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Shu Lea Cheang
production Takashi Asai
music Hoppy Kamiyama
The Saboten
occupation

IKU (from Japanese iku , slang for "having an orgasm ") is a Japanese independent film by the Taiwanese-American filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang . He was a Japanese science fiction - Porn marketed. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000 and was the first pornographic film to be shown there. The film was shown for the first time in Germany on September 25, 2003 during the film festival in Hamburg .

action

The film is set in a futuristic city in Japan in 2030. The protagonist is a female cyborg named Reiko who can take on various forms. You and other cyborgs, also known as "IKU coders", were built by the "GENOM Corporation" to collect and store orgasm data, which are then to be marketed via the Internet. The aim is to produce chips with which this data can be downloaded and played back.

Reiko is sent to Tokyo on her first mission. She is prepared by Dizzy, an "IKU Runner" with whom she also has her first sex experience. IKU runners are employees of the "GENOM Corporation" who look after the coders and are responsible for storing the data. Using a special dildo , which is also shaped like a pistol, the data can be read out from the IKU coders and saved.

After several sex experiences, Reiko ends up in a nightclub and is infected with a mysterious virus by a competing company . It will shut down and its data will be stolen. Your mission seems to have failed. "Mash," a former coder for GENOM Corporation, is helping her to restart by teaching her to masturbate . This possibility is a secret function of the Replicants which enables them to gain freedom through masturbation. She can successfully complete her mission by saving new orgasm data.

The DVD version of the film has two endings. At the first end, Reiko flees the city with the IKU runner Dizzy. The second ending shows the prostitute Akira running away with Dizzy.

Background and production

IKU is the second feature film by the artist Shu Lea Cheang. She is already known in the field of media art and some of her work has been shown in well-known exhibitions. Takashi Asai was responsible for the production , with a relatively small budget . IKU was shot and produced entirely in digital technology. Both Japanese and English are spoken in the film, and without additional information posted on the website, for example, the narrative is difficult to understand. This is also due to the fact that the film does not actually have a normal narrative structure, but uses various elements from digital media . For example, the transitions from one scene to the next are strongly reminiscent of the aesthetics of computer games . The film can also be assigned to the cyberpunk genre.

IKU shows flowing transitions between machines and people, femininity and masculinity, reality and fantasy, public and private, autonomy and dependence. The cyborgs are subject to a process of self-recognition. This happens, for example, when Reiku learns to masturbate , reboots and thus gains autonomy. Reiku may have free will, but her life is entirely subordinate to her mission. As a sex worker, she has to encode orgasm data and is under constant surveillance by GENOM Corporation. She is not able to feel sexual pleasure, but is dependent on the pleasure of her respective partner. Gender is also not subject to a clear assignment. For example, Dizzy, the IKU runner, is initially shown as a male figure, but later shown clearly with female gender characteristics .

Website

The website for the film is part of the fiction and is heavily tied into the concept of the film. In the credits of the film, a reference is expressly made to the website, which turns out to be the company website of the fictional GENOM Corporation. The film is presented on the website as an advertisement for the new IKU chips. There is a news area, jobs as “IKU runners” are offered and new products are presented. The website provides additional information on aspects of the film, thereby expanding the narrative.

literature

  • Yvone Volkart, "Cyborgs, Queere, Transsexuals and Aquatic Beings: Drafts of Fluid Subjects in Shu Lea Cheang's Digital Porn Film IKU" Media and Art: Gender, Metaphor, Code. Contributions to the 7th Art Historians Conference in Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89445-337-0

Web links