Combining ancient wisdom with modern technology , Macau-based Moti Media is trying to create a better future in the realm of wellness and positive psychology. Founded in 2020 during the height of a global pandemic, Pak H. Chau established Moti to help people from all walks of life to cultivate a deeper sense of self and a more profound sense of meaning and purpose.
Working as a borderless team scattered across the globe, Moti uses its artistic content to deliver immersive experiences that inspire humanity to discover its inner utopia. Their pilot animated anthology series Kōan demonstrates this mission. This innovative series evokes emotion, with complexity in concepts and inquisitive visuals. Its delivery makes it widely accessible and offers viewers a fresh and profound look at the wonders of existence. Kōan, in Zen Buddhism, is a paradoxical statement or question used as a meditation discipline, expressing the mysteries of life which cannot be solved logically by the rational or intellectual mind. The very purpose of puzzling these stories is to abandon our dependence on logic and reason.
Moti’s exploration of Kōan concepts utilises these stories with a humanist conceptual throughline that entertains and encourage viewers exploration of these existential concepts. With profound simplicity, Moti’s Kōan quietly stirs an awe-inspiring appreciation of the world around us.
This series by Moti co-founders Ray Yang and Pak.H.Chau, composers Elliot Leung and Kelvin Yuen and animation studios Fat Hamster Studio and Chimils Studio will take you on a journey to see that everything that happens in your life is for you. The purpose of Kōan is not to reach a simple solution. It is the very act of grappling with these paradoxical puzzles that challenge our desire for resolution and our understanding of understanding itself. This series can be used as a visual meditation, drawing your consciousness to something you already have but might not have appreciated. Revealing to you that you have everything within yourself to be great.
"Working with Moti has been as nail-biting as it has been rewarding. However, we wouldn't be called Fat Hamster Studio if we didn't have an appetite for a challenge! Koan's inception series has asked us to dig deep on everyday philosophies of existence and in doing so, also made us question the way we visualize, execute and manage such thought-provoking ideas. Mixing mediums, talents, voices, and visuals, exploration has truly been key to what can only be described as a re-imagination of reality!" says Rohan from Goa-based Fat Hamster Studio.
We explore the Kōan series from Season 0 and invite our readers to immerse in these three meditative animations before they launch Season 1:
Kōan EP 1 - What’s There?｜ 有什麼？
The push and pull of the universal breath.
Life cannot be without death.
From destruction sprouts creation.
Unable to unify without separation.
A blinding light results in a chaotic trance.
There’s a lover’s fight within a cosmic dance.
Moti's first animated short What’s There? is a poignant visual meditation that focuses on the relationship between opposing universal forces and why they are nothing without the other. The black and white animation explores how struggle begets beauty as well as how change is the only true constant. As soon as you have life figured out, the proverbial rug is pulled from under you. Change crashes upon you without pause like waves on the bay. Bright and shining examples of human kindness are found sparkling within the war zone. Love and hate are children of the same mother. Where do torment and forgiveness meet? The universal push and pull of our day-to-day realities are magnified and ruminated upon in this cerebral animated work that plays with the very medium it’s drawn on. The Moti team believes that our perceptions shape our existence. So then what is existence? What is this primordial canvas we are layering all of our perceptions upon? How do we find out What’s There?
Watch the full video below:
Director and Creator: Pak H. Chau Music Composer: Elliot Leung Animation Studio: Fat Hamster Studio
Kōan EP 2 - Pursuit of Heavens | 追尋天堂"
Eaten by time and bounded by space,
You can read from the lines on my face.
Was told of a place that awaited us all.
The world was a circle, and now it’s a ball.
And before all of that it was only a dot,
Raw material from which existence was wrought.
The second short Pursuit of Heavens is an inter-dimensional exploration that stems from the most dangerous question of them all: Why? You’re told to look up, but that is only relational. You go up far enough until there is no up anymore, only the infinite and ever-growing vacuum that houses all life. Where does ultimate reality reside? Is it folded somewhere inside? Are we already there and too close to see, and losing the forest for the trees? Join Tommy as he unravels the fabric of spacetime and travails to the very source of all of existence while the world melts around you.
Watch the full video below:
Director and Creator: Pak H. Chau
Music Composer: Elliot Leung
Animation Studio: Chimils Studio
Kōan EP 3 - Cycle | 循環
The circle is eternity’s insignia that leads us all through the process of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Just as easily as life is given, it’s taken away once they’re poured out and put into other containers that experience the same cycle. Join us for this playful and colorful look at eternity’s wheel!
Watch the full video below:
Director and Creator: Pak H. Chau
Music Producer: Elliot Leung
Music Composer: Kelvin Yuen
Animation Studio: Fat Hamster Studio