These days we are often quick to respond cynically to technological advances. False memories and implanted microchips sound like the start of a dystopian blockbuster but they are inching closer to our reality. When Mark Zuckerberg announced his plans for the metaverse, many responded with a resounding, “Who asked for this?” Ikeuchi’s response is that technology is only frightening if we are afraid. “There is hope in the fact that we can believe that technology is something to hope for,” Ikeuchi says. Their work asks, what if we dared to dream of a better world through technology instead of shying away from it?

Ikeuchi studied Art Science at Tama University, Tokyo, where the designer began making dioramas from models and computer components in the department of information design. Since then, Ikeuchi has become a collective. A recent collaboration was with Balenciaga for their Spring 2022 campaign where models wore Ikeuchi’s headgear and exoskeletons created in partnership with robotics company Skeletonics. The evocative creations were showcased at Balenciaga’s Aoyama f lagship store in Tokyo, select locations throughout Japan and their Paris Montaigne flagship. The cyborg designs situated the luxury brand firmly in the future fantasy world of Hiroto Ikeuchi.

Inspired by science fiction and cyberpunk, Ikeuchi explores the tension between fact and fiction. Virtual reality, the metaverse and transhumanism used to exist in the world of fiction. Now, they’re breaking out from the literary and cinematic to function in our real lives. It’s up to us how we respond. It might seem like a contradiction, but humans and technology have more in common than it first appears, and not just in a creepy AI way. We created technology so humanity and tech will always be interlinked. “I think we can learn more about the nature of human beings themselves from the way they use technology,” says Ikeuchi. “We may also be able to understand humans by comparing them to technology.” Having hope in technology means taking a risk and daring to dream. Working with technology requires the same drive. With some larger pieces taking more than a month to finish, Ikeuchi is driven by obsession – an obsession balanced between functionality and design, and how to marry the two.

Functional fashion has hit its stride in the last decade. Smartwatches, temperature-changing smart fabrics, and garments with sensor controls are becoming part of our everyday wardrobes. Both fashion and human beings are merging with tech. Ikeuchi’s work explores transhumanism and how humans interact with technology. Transhumanists believe that humans can expand and improve their natural state through technology. Ikeuchi’s designs do just that, adding headsets and tablets as an extension of the human body. Ikeuchi believes we can learn more about humans through the study of tech. After all, humans created technology in the first place.

Placing industrial parts and technological hardware in new contexts, Ikeuchi marries fashion with functionality. Each piece stands out for its bold futuristic and experimental design. They function as wearable tech as well as art installations. But beneath the appearance, each creation is also fully functional. Virtual reality goggles and headphones immerse the wearer in their own tech-facilitated universe. From VR headsets to speakers and tablets, Ikeuchi’s pieces ask us what would happen if humankind merged fully with technology.

Ikeuchi’s work brings to mind retrofuturism, blending future-focused functionality with the nostalgia of classics from the cyberpunk genre. If you’ve seen films like Blade Runner, The Matrix or Ready Player One, elements of Ikeuchi may feel familiar. Cyberpunk has roots in Japanese anime classics like Akira and Ghost in the Shell with the origin of Japanese cyberpunk rooted in the 1980s with films like Burst City and Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

The cyberpunk genre often depicts computer technology as dominating futuristic urban societies. Think dystopian industrial cities, apocalyptic gear like masks and goggles and a fascination with the relationship between humans and technology. In these stories, characters often experience mutations and dehumanisation at the hands of technology. Its influence on Ikeuchi is apparent. Functional objects are modified to look like cyberpunk wear for traversing futuristic cities.

While pieces look like they have stepped out from a science fiction movie or videogame, they are partly in response to how tech is already being used by governments and corporations today. The wearable pieces obscure the face, masking identifiable features and evading surveillance. Surveillance culture is referenced through Ikeuchi’s work though the collective takes an ambivalent view of it, noting that increased surveillance can create greater safety at the expense of our right to privacy. This is a timely observation, particularly in Japan where increased surveillance was installed at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, ostensibly to ensure that Covid guidelines were being respected. Some feared it would be used to test the efficacy of increased surveillance on a larger scale.

The insidious repercussions of surveillance culture are already being felt not too far away. In China, for example, artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies are being used to deploy large-scale surveillance systems and control the movements of persecuted minorities. Japan has hit back, however, placing export controls on facial recognition devices. Ikeuchi isn’t worried about the future of surveillance, saying “Whatever the future brings, I’m sure it will be better.”

It’s easy to feel anxious about the future right now. It’s easy to catastrophise and imagine that technology will lead us to a bleak dystopia. However, Ikeuchi reminds us that tech is constantly evolving. It’s possible to recontextualise gadgets in innovative and striking ways. The attraction of science fiction is often its capacity to create boundless possibilities. Looking at Ikeuchi’s work feels just as expansive.