Aidol: Prismatic Ground 2023 Screening

We was in the middle of the fourth wave of the 2023 Prismatic Ground Festival when we caught the US premiere of Aidol from director Lawrence Lek. The animation film is about the music industry, how AI is taking over humanity and what humans would do for fame and popularity. A very interesting tale about Diva, a pop singer who wants to make a dramatic comeback to save her fledgling career. With the use CGI and online game play Lek takes the viewer through a vibrant world of humanoid robots, Chinese temples and outer space jungles accompanied with a soundtrack of Diva. The film plays out to a soundtrack as we walk through phases of betrayal, manipulation and industry politics. Each track highlights a different stage in Diva's comeback attempt. All songs are scored by Lek which uses the pre programming arrangements of today's pop music. The music is very heavy on computerized sounds to interpret the sound of today where Diva attempts to succeed without help of AI but eventually uses it for her big performance at the festival.

Lek tries to make sense of how and why fame and celebrity captivate the music industry and why singers deemed old even though they have recent hits with the dialogue between Diva and Geomancer who tries to dismiss Diva's popularity. The images were magnificent and the CGI backdrops were immaculate which help guide the viewer through the story. It have a great dialogue in which you can tell Lek studied the concept of celebrity quite well. Aidol is a great combination of science fiction and psychodrama with a splash of game culture mixed in.