The KID A MNESIA digital exhibition
To celebrate 21 years of music, namely Kid A and Amnesiac, the band Radiohead have done something pretty cool. They’ve gone and commissioned a digital exhibition, showcasing both the art and the music of their two albums. How Radiohead have done this though is pretty damn cool. They made a 3d digital world in which you can experience Radiohead’s art, both in drawings and music.
It’s an… interesting experience
KID A MNESIA is a strange thing. It has pretty standard and simple controls – all you can really do is walk around and occasionally sprint. Meanwhile, everything just sort of happens around you. Well, I say happens, it’s mostly just a maze-like art house, with various art scribbled all over the place. Cool art though.
Whole exploring, it’s easy to feel forgotten and alone. Both music and art make a lot of turns, and all feel unique, despite the art style.
I do however feel like the song loops could have looped a bit more. Some places, the looping was great (e.g. the Pyramid Atrium) but smaller places had rougher loops.
An assault on the senses
Really, all of this is strange and bright and flashy. Your senses won’t like it at first. Once you pass the little sign telling you that “this is not a game”, you get a rumble of music and many flashing and electrified walls. I’d recommend taking it slow and steady, because, at times, it was too much for me. Thankfully only a handful of rooms are THAT flashy, and there is a warning when KID A MNESIA loads up, informing you of the flashy lights and all that.
But, eventually, you start to get used to the visual noise. The entire time, you have remixed tracks in the background, an attempt to remain calm and eerie.
Genuinely eerie
As you walk around though and push past the flashing, you end up with something that really kinda doesn’t feel right. Everything seems out of place, despite the name of the song. There is plenty of strangeness to be seen and heard. Little demons skitter around harmlessly, while cold and dead-looking stick figures hang around in the gloom. The geography of the whole mini world is weird and freakish as well, like an abandoned subway or something. Either way, sometimes the eeriness of it all was kinda… I don’t know… Weird? Especially as you see all the graffiti scribbled on the walls.
One thing that did stick out to me was the inclusion of QR codes. They’d normally be placed near doorways. The QR codes all seem to lead to merchandise on the KID A MNESIA website. But they kinda stick out a little too much, especially compared to the rough, scribbled art style.
The Little Cinema was my favourite bit
There are quite a few rooms, more than meets the eye. Some rooms are large and empty, others
Funnily enough, you actually don’t hear many of the newly released tracks. It’s all mostly intros, made to loop oddly, with scattered verses occasionally dropped in. However, in the Little Cinema, while sitting next to a small, shocked demon, you can listen to the entirety of the song Optimistic. Being one of my favourite Radiohead songs, I did appreciate that.
Overall, it’s a really interesting experience. KID A MNESIA is dark and creepy but also oddly soothing. There’s no objectives, no actual gameplay, just a place to see and hear art in a new and interesting way. A digital gallery in a nonsensical space. If you like vaguely scary things and wandering around corridors, I’d recommend giving KID A MNESIAC a try. Unless you have problems with flashing lights. Because there are a lot of bright, flashing lights down there.
That being said, KID A MNESIA is only available on Epic and PS5. It’s free, but I don’t particularly like Epic. Which kinda sucks. Just this once though, I think it won’t hurt…
