A flickering screen, an unknown yet familiar ’80s game show like tune, and the view of a nighttime highrise landscape set the mood in Jon Rafman’s new video work Neon Parallel 1996. Part live-action footage, video game sequences, simulated chat, poetic voiceover and virtual landscape, Neon Parallel 1996 is in Rafman’s own words an attempt at creating a “lost vaporwave classic.”

It’s like a vague memory of a time gone by, one that’s slipping through our fingers as it’s unfolding, while human desire continues to lead us through a world that seems only partially graspable. As a fragment of a chat exchange reveals, we are left trying to simulate in order to navigate our surroundings.

spider_: Why are you here?
ang3l: I came to retrace my steps.

Neon Parallel 1996 is now on view at Jon Rafman at Zabludowicz Collection
October 8 – December 20