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HEAT EXCHANGE
Concept brand video
Six months ago HEAT EXCHANGE was born in a quarantine bedroom.
In a world with increasing fear of separation and metaverse-induced anxiety, we want to build a community culture focusing on healing philosophy and practice.
Our first project started with a question: how do we overcome the fear of entrapment and embrace our inner selves from traumatic experience? We are lucky to draw immediate support from our creative community around the globe — Shanghai, Berlin, Tokyo and New York — to build a fantastical world from scratch, and a product of self love.
CREATE FROM EXCHANGE.
WE ARE NEVER ALONE.
First brand concept video launching in October.
3D art & direction by @nao_wao_
Music by @cateyemusic_jp from @8681 CLUB & Sixeyes
The creation of the phantasmagoric world O-O-O-O is an awakening of inclusivity and celebration of the discovery in Crip Pheromone. One enters this world through embracing one’s own physical limits and transcending environmental barriers by attaining renewed survival strategies.
HEAT EXCHANGE reflects on a world that suffers from pervading separation, language and cultural barriers, and political fault lines. They collaborated with NAOWAO, CaTEye, and Sixeyes to realize a vision of an alternative world that dissolves boundaries, questions binary thinking and re-discovers the interconnectedness of all lives. HEAT EXCHANGE lusts for a life that is not gazed at or judged by tinted glasses but a life that rejuvenates from accessibility.
In a world that champions reason, symmetry, evolution and perfection, there lies a phantasmagoric world — O-O-O-O, the world of “the crip”. The crips refuse to be tamed and typecasted into a neat naming system that subjugates intricate life into simple codes. The crips constantly reinvent themselves to create malleable perception of time and space. The world is called “O-O-O-O” because it defies the tyranny of language and reads as a pictograph. “O-O-O-O” transcends OOO (object-oriented-ontology) in that it embodies animism, which believes in the spiritual manifestation of all creatures. The fourth “O” stems from the transliteration of Runic letter ᛟ, referring to the gift for divine possession. “O-O-O-O” is a perfect inversion of the realistic world we inhabit. Pain is the entry ticket to the “O-O-O-O” world, only that pain is turned to pleasure once you enter.
O-O-O-O works like a sandbox game, in that it is eclectic and ever-emerging. Different mythologies across cultural and historical boundaries (Taoist tale, Bulgarian traditional rituals, Tibetan masks, etc.) fuse together to create a fantastical world with exquisite strangeness — a Chinese-landscape-painting-like valley, on which Hieronymus Bosch and Shan Hai Jing (山海经) inspired creatures channeling and connecting with each other.
To enter the O-O-O-O, HEAT EXCHANGE has started a design label in the form of accessories. They work like wearable talisman, the arms and armors of our body and mind. Taking inspiration from Taoist philosophy of which “Qi” (roughly translated as “energy”) is the root of all, HEAT EXCHANGE prioritizes the protection of knees, as they are one of the key portals of human energy system. The idea of making knee protectors was also born out of a practical need, as knee injuries can often turn into irreversible physical damage. Meanwhile, to wear a knee protector outside without shame of being asked or viewed as unwell is a first statement for crips. HEAT EXCHANGE’s first collection introduces a combination of furry fabric and fine metallic materials, reflecting the aura and the backbone of O-O-O-O creatures, to radiate warmness and sturdiness in an accessible beauty, a crip pheromone.
1st Annual METAVERSE exhibition gEnki
Spazio Thetis, Venice 2022
Launched in 2022 during the omicron pandemic by Megenta Lu and Cassi Zheng, HEAT EXCHANGE is an accessory design brand with a wholesome vision: promoting physical and mental wellness as part and parcel of youth culture. Investigating themes from post-humanism to spirituality, the collective’s transgressive designs aim to inject a punk attitude to the philosophy and practice of self love. In a world with increasing alienation, craze and anxiety, HEAT EXCHANGE stands for the energy exchange between independent and subversive spirits.
Claire Li is a writer, curator and producer who believes in art and design as eternal themes to unite and explore. She makes exhibitions in virtual worlds and realities to foster creative ideas and facilitate meaningful exchanges, with acute sensibilities towards architecture and film. In recent years, she has committed her time to International Asian community and disability studies.
"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."
- Zhuangzi
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