SCENES FROM
PARALLEL LIVES
A body of work unfolding across film, music, comics, and artefacts.
At its centre is an absent figure. Around her, a world has accumulated.
Scenes from Parallel Lives begins with a myth. A synthetic human named Ikkyu exists only in the works that surround her. These works are traces left behind by those who encountered her — fragments of a vanished culture through which her influence is gradually reconstructed.
What does it mean to remain free, in your body, in your mind, within cultures that gradually lose their capacity for self-correction? Open cultures can drift toward systems that suppress error correction. It happens incrementally. What survives that drift is the question the work keeps asking.
The project does not answer. It unfolds through film, music, comics, video art, and physical artefacts — fragments of a larger fictional archive that reveal their connections over time.
Rather than a linear narrative, the project is encountered as a collection of fragments whose relationships gradually reconstruct a larger fictional history.
Science begins with myth. So does this.
SAFETY SUPPRESSION PROTOCOL
SINGLE CHANNEL VIDEO. 90 MINUTES
A curator is commissioned to archive a series of underground comics centred on a mythic synthetic human. As she investigates Ikkyu’s story and the transformation she must undergo to survive and find autonomy, the curator begins to experience her own profound transformation.
→ View Details
CAFÉ FALLIBLE
SINGLE CHANNEL VIDEO. APPROX. 70 MINUTES
Two performers run a cultural sanctuary and space of quiet provocation. When one of them begins receiving information she cannot account for, their work becomes something considerably more dangerous.
→ View Details
TESTIMONIES
SIX CHANNEL VIDEO. 20 MINUTES
Language: Japanese with English subtitles.
Six fictional interviews with people who claim to have encountered S-humans connected to Ikkyu.
Their accounts form part of an archive documenting the period before the collapse of the Great Dynamic, when these artificially created humans produced the works that survive within Scenes from Parallel Lives.
SYNCANDI
SEQUENTIAL ART ON PAPER. 10 ISSUES. 163 PAGES.
A sequential art work created by the illustrator after encountering Ikkyu. The series documents the origin and transformation of a synthetic human whose story becomes the foundation for the wider body of works surrounding her.
IKKYU’S JOURNAL
INK ON PAPER. 10 PAGES
Language: Japanese text with English translations available.
Ten dramatic monologues created by the writer after encountering Ikkyu. Through an act of heightened empathy, the writer attempts to channel Ikkyu’s psychological journey from a partially programmed synthetic human toward autonomous selfhood.
SHODO JOURNAL
INK ON WASHI. 10 PIECES
Created in response to Ikkyu’s Journal, these shodo works correspond to each entry, transforming the same material into another artistic form.
IKKYU’S JOURNAL SONGS
DIGITAL AUDIO. 30 MINUTES
Ten avant-pop songs created by the composer after encountering Ikkyu, transforming themes and fragments from Ikkyu’s journal entries into a new musical language. In Safety Suppression Protocol, these songs reappear as a driving narrative force.
IKKYU SONICS
DIGITAL AUDIO. 20 MINUTES
Seven electroacoustic compositions created by the composer after encountering Ikkyu, exploring moments when Ikkyu develops the ability to communicate with her environment through sound vibrations.
GENEIS RES
SINGLE CHANNEL VIDEO. 3 MINUTES
An animated work created by the animator after encountering Ikkyu.
CRASH SERIES
PRINTS ON PAPER. 5 PIECES
A photographic series created by the photographer after encountering Ikkyu. In Safety Suppression Protocol, these images reappear as artefacts.
ACTIVE TEXTS & VIDEO
FOUR CHANNEL VIDEO. 4 MINUTE LOOP
A video work created by the video artist after encountering Ikkyu. A camera moves through a city, drawn to apparently mundane subjects.
ART e FACT
SINGLE CHANNEL VIDEO. 22 MINUTES
An early iteration of Safety Suppression Protocol. Experimental. Fragmentary. Unresolved.
→ View Details
ROBERT IOLINI
Robert Iolini is an internationally recognised filmmaker, composer and artist whose work spans narrative film, music, video art, comics and radio. Scenes from Parallel Lives extends a practice of more than twenty years investigating how cultures organise, transform and regenerate meaning through creative form.
His previous large-scale work, the experimental hybrid documentary The Hong Kong Agent, has been exhibited internationally in Hong Kong, Seoul, New York, Sydney, Locarno and Prague. Its 2022 presentation at M+ Mediatheque, Hong Kong, was withdrawn following a censorship ruling by the Hong Kong Board of Review.
The Hong Kong Agent exists across eighteen short films, gallery installation, radio drama, online interactive and augmented reality.
Iolini also holds two critically acclaimed solo albums on British avant-garde label ReR Megacorp.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Scenes from Parallel Lives is an ongoing body of interconnected films, music, sequential art, moving-image works and artefacts developed by Australian artist, filmmaker and composer Robert Iolini over more than a decade.
The project operates across multiple forms, with each work functioning independently while contributing to a larger fictional archive. Films, songs, comics and physical artefacts circulate between imagined history and real exhibition contexts.
The works engage with speculative scientific ideas including artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and evolving social systems. Rather than treating these ideas as technological spectacle, the project uses speculative narratives to examine questions of identity, creativity, consciousness and the future relationship between humans and the systems they create.
EXHIBITION POSSIBILITIES
Scenes from Parallel Lives is conceived as a constellation of interconnected works that can be presented as an expanded exhibition environment. Each component offers a fragment of a larger fictional history; meaning emerges through the relationships between films, sound works, sequential art and artefacts.
Possible presentation formats include:
- Feature film screenings
- Multi-screen installation
- Integrated sound environments
- Listening stations
- Printed artefact and comic displays
- Sequential image projection
- Hybrid cinema / gallery presentation
The project is modular in structure and adaptable according to venue and curatorial context. Components may be presented physically, digitally, or entirely screen-based depending on exhibition requirements.
TECHNICAL NOTES
Available formats include:
- HD digital video files
- Digital audio files
- Optional 5.1 audio where applicable
- Digital still images
- Printed materials and sequential works
- Screen-based and physical artefacts
Presentation does not require specialised technology beyond standard video playback, audio systems and exhibition display infrastructure.
The final installation configuration is adaptable and can be developed in dialogue with the presenting venue according to available space, equipment and curatorial requirements.
CONTACT
Robert Iolini : robert@iolini.com
Enquiries regarding exhibitions, screenings and collaborations are welcome.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Scenes from Parallel Lives was created by Robert Iolini in collaboration with:
Joanna Krótka — Illustrator SYNCANDI
Yukiko Sugiyama — Photographer CRASH SERIES
Ross Gibson — Writer ACTIVE TEXTS & VIDEO
Chizu Ikura — Artist SHODO JOURNAL
Nono Nagami — Songwriter LOVE SONG OF GENEIS RES
David Nerlich — Animator LOVE SONG OF GENEIS RES
Additional archival and development notes