Introducing Commons // Keiken and Jazmin Morris

Abandon Normal Devices and the School of Digital Arts are pleased to announce Commons – a unique programme fostering innovative approaches to digital practice, inviting digital practitioners to draw upon new opportunities for collaborating, making and resourcing.

Over the spring and summer of 2025, through Commons, we will invite digital artist Jazmin Morris and artist collective Keiken to showcase a selection of their work, offering a glimpse into their artistic practices and inquiries for visitors throughout the duration of their respective shows. Through both presentations and showcases, Keiken and Jazmin Morris will hold space for a more inclusive and participatory exchange of knowledge and experiences with visitors. They will work closely with a hyper-local community of students, academics and local groups, delving into the conceptual, technical, political and collaborative aspects of creating immersive digital worlds.

Worldbuilding and the Nature of Reality
Keiken
22 April – 07 May 2025
Keiken will delve into themes of interconnectedness, perception, and immersion. Drawing from their expansive worldbuilding practice, Keiken will explore how relationships, energy, and sensory experience shape reality—both in digital and physical space. With a keen focus on exploring how we translate emotional and tactile perception into a virtual realm, Worldbuilding and the Nature of Reality will seek to deepen their research & development of an intimate, sensory-driven gaming experience.

This new work in development will form a key branch of their expansive worldbuilding project Morphogenic Angels and is informed by their deep and ongoing connections to marginalised communities across Japan. Through their ongoing interest in sensory and perceptual understanding, Keiken will aim to create a gaming experience inspired by a key collaborator and deaf-blind queer artist, Sakura Sky. This current inquiry seeks to bridge sensory and communication gaps with Sakura Sky whilst also fostering empathy, understanding, and direct interaction for players through innovative technology.

About Keiken
Founded in 2015 by Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori and Isabel Ramos, the artist collective Keiken are collaboratively building and imagining speculative futures to test-drive new ways of existing. They do this through filmmaking, gaming, installation, XR, blockchain, and performance.

As part of their residency AND will host a playthrough of Keiken’s world-building game Morphogenic Angels Chapter 1 in Modal gallery on 26 April and an end of residency talk from the artists on 7 May. Find out more.

Sandbox
Jazmin Morris
28 July – 14 August 2025
Jazmin Morris re-imagines Modal gallery as a community resource, activated with talks, workshops and an interactive library. The ‘library’ will push the boundaries of knowledge sharing and traditional archiving, situating carefully curated media as a tool for collective resistance and liberation, with aims to distribute media both online and offline. Jazmin has been inspired by play, sharing knowledge, and the theme of worlding*, using creative computing and games design as mediums for social/political criticism.

*Making worlds together, inspired by the question ‘what kinds of worlds are needed at this time of ecological crises?

About Jazmin Morris
Jazmin Morris is a Creative Computing Artist and Educator based in Leeds. Her practice and pedagogy consider the historical trajectories of modern technology and critically speculate on the landscape of human-computer interaction.

Using free and open-source tools, Jazmin crafts participatory digital works that challenge power dynamics and hierarchies within cyberspace, with a particular emphasis on the processes of simulating culture and identity. Despite her critical approach, Jazmin appreciates the early days of the internet and is a huge fan of the classic gaming icon, Super Mario 64.

Details on how to participate will be announced soon. Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to find out more.

About Commons

Commons is a joint commitment by Abandon Normal Devices and the School of Digital Arts (SODA) to platform emerging art forms and push the boundaries of digital practice. Devised as a prompt to rethink our approaches to digital practices and ask if we can develop new models for commissioning, experiencing, interpreting and preserving digital art that reflect the inherent values of digital culture.

Launching in April 2025, the programme will offer access to resources and expertise at SODA that will support the bold visions of practitioners working at the intersection of art and technology. Audiences will have the opportunity to see works-in-progress as they evolve with the processes of dialogue, experimentation and iteration in digital art practice is made visible as part of the showcase.

Commons is a collaboration between Abandon Normal Devices (AND) and the School of Digital Arts (SODA). AND is supported with public funding from Arts Council England.

Image: Keiken, at Amos Rex, photo by Niclas Warius.