BON
The Emotion Industry is Bon Music Vision's audio visual comment on the modern digital landscape and its influence.
“Bon have established themselves as an inventive force creating at the intersection of club music and sound design.” - Crack Magazine
The music was created and performed without the use of AI generation.
Recorded between London, L.A, and Canada using tape and vintage analogue equipment - The Emotion Industry is a visual album exploring identity and selfhood in the digital age. Framed by dream logic and 'The Fool’s Journey' through the Tarot’s Major Arcana, it traces a path from innocence to wisdom. The score blends Afrofuturism, Asian industrial electronica, sound system culture, post-rave, and dub.
“There is an unfathomable power to blur reality as we know it. The ability to discern what’s real and what’s not is becoming increasingly difficult - social media super computers using data points to push your buttons for manufacturing consent, emotions and attention becoming the product, Ai articles and deep fake images add to the illusion. The ability to really ‘see’ the objective reality of what’s been created is the new enlightenment.
We aim to use the most modern cutting edge techniques available to us. Sometimes embracing the errors and inconsistencies in the knowledge that when the “bugs” are ironed out and the tech made smooth these errors will be lost forever. Capturing the spaces in between advancement is an essential archive to advancement. Yesterday’s idiosyncrasies are today’s nostalgia.
The Emotion Industry is a way to bring forward the concepts of awareness, intention, and agenda - what are your biases, your prejudices, your interests, your opinions, and where did they come from? How authentic are they when you're up against this huge force of the digital world and its own agendas? What feels real and true to you, and what's that based on? As an archive, we created the visuals using AI for the very real purpose of capturing its growth. It's special, just as a child's first drawings are. It's authentic to what they are capable of at that time, a record of its growth, and a symbol of where humanity is in the timeline."
The project's secondary engagement examines the evolution of online spaces, from the early Web 1 era of niche communities to the emotionally manipulative algorithms of Web 2 and beyond. This transition has redefined how individuals perceive truth, agency, and emotional autonomy, making the ability to critically navigate digital spaces more crucial than ever. This shift from an open-source culture to a reactive internet has influenced the project's themes of identity, agency, and technological dependency.
Interview - Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art
V&A 25th April 2025 Performance - Selected works from The Emotion Industry
The visuals reflect the overwhelming variety of content that floods our feeds—each piece intentionally distinct, capturing the eclectic and ever-shifting nature of digital culture.
Impossible on Demand
Created with TouchDesigner, DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Final Cut Pro 1.5, Impossible on Demand marks the beginning of the Fool’s Journey. This ambiguous digital frieze-style visual reflects the apprehension and confusion at the outset of the digital landscape.
Pilot
This film-noir inspired visual depicts a stark world of black-and-white thinking and corporate efficiency. An example of AI’s infancy, it creatively reinterprets the prompt "Parallax," generating surreal, imposing, empty buildings that rise, shrink, and shape-shift. Real footage intertwines with AI-generated imagery, challenging the viewer to differentiate between AI and reality while also marking AI's progress.
Illuminate i
In an oppressive, near-impenetrable darkness, the visuals reflect the tension and anxiety of navigating digital spaces clouded by misinformation, nefarious agendas, and calculated opacity.
Illuminate ii
Illuminate ii uses Gaussian Splat rendering of a serene, real-world location to create an immersive and contemplative visual meditation. Emerging gently from darkness, the piece explores a transformative journey toward clarity, insight, and truth.
Internal Weather
Internal Weather explores the emotional turbulence triggered by algorithmically curated digital content designed to emotionally engage and manipulate viewers. Analogous to the weather, it shifts from intense storms and chaos to lush, sunny vistas, mirroring the fluctuating emotional states fostered by our digital interactions.
Exploded View
Central to the piece is a figure seemingly trapped, struggling to communicate within a television-like broadcast. Portraits of philosophers and critical thinkers underscore the importance of intellectual curiosity and critical thinking.
Halo Effect
Halo Effect examines how our digitally saturated landscape intensifies the cognitive bias known as the "halo effect" in an age of populism, where nuanced truths are overshadowed by identity politics. Crafted from real footage enhanced with Topaz, the work serves as a metaphor for the subtle infiltration of misinformation and the gradual seeping of manipulated ideas.
Data Point Dolly
Data Point Dolly captures the frantic consumption, noise, and relentless pace of digital life through distorted vocals, rapid edits, and chaotic visuals—where attention and emotions become the primary products. Amid surveillance-like glitches and sensory overload, it culminates with moments of clarity, offering relief and the possibility of reclaiming emotional autonomy amidst digital chaos.
Visual tools used: Runway v2, Stable Diffusion 1.5, Automatic 1111, Sony A6400, Samsung WB150F, SIMDA Slide projector, Luma Labs, VHS, TouchDesigner, DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, Topaz