Saturation City emerges from the intersection of digital escapism and the brutal realities of racist oppressive police brutality—a thematic constellation that forms the conceptual foundation of my artistic practice. Created during a pivotal moment in my development as both an artist and a young Black person navigating the complexities of racialized existence across two continents, this work represents a confluence of technical experimentation and urgent political expression.

The film was conceived and executed during my formative years at CalArts, as I simultaneously mastered advanced 3D graphics techniques and grappled with the lived experience of anti-Black racism in both American and Hungarian contexts. This dual process of artistic skill acquisition and racial consciousness development informs every aspect of the work's aesthetic and conceptual framework. The integration of live-action cinematography with computer-generated environments reflects my own hybrid existence—navigating between physical and digital realms, between European and American racial hierarchies, between the promise of technological transcendence and the persistent reality of embodied vulnerability.

My personal encounters with police surveillance and harassment—including incidents of being followed home by law enforcement—provided the experiential foundation for the film's exploration of state violence. These micro and macro aggressions, documented and undocumented, became the raw material for a broader investigation into the pervasive normalization of anti-Black police violence within contemporary society. Through extensive research into cases of police brutality, I sought to contextualize my individual experiences within the larger patterns of systematic oppression that characterize modern policing.

The paradox at the heart of Saturation City lies in the tension between technological optimism and social stagnation. While we inhabit an era of unprecedented digital innovation—virtual reality, artificial intelligence, global connectivity—the fundamental structures of racial oppression remain not only intact but increasingly sophisticated in their methods of control and surveillance. The film suggests that rather than providing liberation from these systems, technology often serves to obscure or aestheticize ongoing violence against Black bodies.

Saturation City itself functions as both destination and methodology—a virtual sanctuary I have constructed within my own imagination as a site of refuge from the relentless pressures of racialized existence. This digital metropolis represents more than mere escapism; it embodies a practice of speculative world-building that imagines alternative social configurations beyond the constraints of white supremacist spatial arrangements. The city's saturation refers not only to its vivid chromatic palette but to its density of possibility, its refusal of the desaturated, surveilled landscapes of contemporary urban life.

The film operates as what I term a "political and spiritual pop culture explosion"—a deliberate fusion of entertainment aesthetics, activist urgency, and metaphysical inquiry. Drawing from the visual languages of science fiction, music video culture, and experimental animation, Saturation City attempts to create new forms of expression adequate to the complexity of Black experience in the digital age. The work refuses to separate political critique from aesthetic pleasure, understanding both as necessary components of any meaningful response to systemic oppression.

Ultimately, Saturation City proposes virtual space as both diagnostic tool and healing practice—a means of analyzing the operations of racial violence while simultaneously constructing zones of possibility that exceed the imaginative limitations imposed by white supremacist culture. The work stands as testimony to the necessity of creating alternative worlds when the existing world proves insufficient to sustain Black life and creativity.