Keiken (経験) means "experience" in Japanese, and that is exactly what this artist collective is after: building experiences meant to be lived through all the senses. Their work moves fluidly between video games, installation, video and performance, always with the same obsession: imagining possible futures through storytelling, the body and empathic technologies. Winners of the Lumen Prize (2024) and the Chanel Next Prize (2021), and artists in residence at Somerset House in London, they have exhibited at KANAL-Centre Pompidou, the Helsinki Biennial, the Wellcome Collection and the Venice Biennale, among many others.

But the project that has captivated us most is the one that does not always make it into press releases: their research on accessibility and inclusion, developed in dialogue with diverse communities including DeafBlind participants, and in conversation with a Japanese tradition of video games designed for blind players that operate entirely through sound. This line of work crystallises in Morphogenic Angels, an open, collaborative universe that investigates how communication, identity and environment shift when perception is not centred around vision or language.

At Sónar+D, Keiken will present their practice as the creation of perceptual world systems: worlds shaped by different ways of sensing and experiencing reality. Rather than assuming a single, shared perspective, their work explores how multiple perceptual logics can coexist, each generating its own understanding of the world, and asks how future worlds, technologies and social systems might be designed to support this plurality.

It cannot really be explained with words. You have to be there in person, paying full attention, because listening deeply is ultimately, a radical form of empathy. As Pauline Oliveros put it: walk so silently that the soles of your feet become ears.