Image: Photograph from music video of GENER8ION, STORM, 2026. Courtesy of GENER8ION
GENER8ION, the duo formed by producer and composer Surkin and filmmaker Romain Gavras, will show the immersive installation "GOD HATES SPACE" in the Rotonde d'Antin at the Grand Palais in Paris from 22 to 25 October 2026. The work is presented by Art Basel Paris together with Live Nation France and Iconoclast Music, and entry is free through the building's Entrance 4.
The installation combines film, music and architecture around a 12-metre, double-sided screen. Its fiction is set in 2034, in an independent Idaho, and it takes the form of a propaganda video made by the Agartha Liberation Army, an invented insurgent group that grew out of an online community called 6Chan. The group believes the Earth is hollow and that salvation lies within it, and its theology forbids the exploration of space. The structure itself nods to the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey", shown here lying on its side.
Surkin and Gavras founded GENER8ION just over ten years ago, building on a friendship that, by their account, goes back some 20 years. According to Art Basel, their shared references run from American rap and Japanese video games to the French Touch 2.0 scene and Detroit techno. Their music video "STORM", featuring the rapper Yung Lean and choreographed by Damien Jalet, spread widely online, picturing a threatening near future and a bleak vision of masculinity; it was followed by "STORM II". Their album "Love & Tears" was released in June 2026, and Gavras's feature films include "Sacrifice" (2025).
In conversation with Art Basel, the artists describe a way of working without a fixed method, built on long discussions about images and sound. They say they are drawn to near-future scenarios that avoid familiar clichés about technology, asking instead what might happen if online trolls gained visibility and political ideas grew more extreme. They also see their work as moving between screens and physical spaces, and have previously shown at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris and at 180 Studios in London. They add that choreography conveys feeling in a way that putting it into words would weaken.
On Friday 23 October the installation stays open until 10.30pm.
