Rod Chong

Gathering internal resource. Slowly slowly. Being gentle with self and feeling the feels. Love to you all 🖤🫂✨🖤

NIGHT MAXXING with @machine.aesthetic.official Had the pleasure of working alongside @race.service and Machine Aesthetic during their event in February. Light painting during an event and creating space for other creatives to capture their content too. Huge thanks to @taylorbrobbins and @rev_sect for being on board. ⚡️⚡️⚡️

Driving. Feeling. Feeling some more. Inhale. Exhale.

Spend the day with fellow creatives @stefanieegedy @amandadonato3 @chris.blohm and I at the @fiaformulae E-Prix Berlin. A fabulous day out! Thanks to @ellietory and @aoaidan for hosting us 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

A machine and I by @maddiemurphyphoto at @air__water

Looking back at last week’s @fiaformulae GEN4 race car launch, we’ve been incredibly excited to see how well the car was received. Once images from Paul Ricard began circulating, the launch quickly swept across the motorsport world, with the new GEN4 at the centre of it all. We’re proud to say that alongside designing and helping to execute the launch event itself, @race.service also worked closely with Formula E on the livery design for not only the new GEN4 race car, but the GEN1, GEN2 and GEN3 cars featured in the presentation as well. This project stemmed from the Generations Pursuit on track moment, where all four generations of Formula E car were brought together to demonstrate the progression of the championship and just how far the technology has advanced. That opportunity led Formula E’s creative team to commission Race Service to develop a complete four car livery programme. The brief was to create a visual storyline of technological development, complexity and power from GEN1 through to the present day. Developed by RS team member, @seanbulldesign , the resulting concept was titled Airflow Energy. The graphic language represents airflow in timeline form across the four generations, showing a build-up of energy leading toward GEN4 before expanding and releasing at its climax. Surface complexity increases across each chassis to reflect the advancing technical sophistication of the series, while key aerodynamic elements were highlighted for readability and visual progression. By GEN4, the design centres on kinetic ion energy release, with the driver and machine visually merging around the cockpit focal point. We also integrated broader visual cues from the @grantarts GEN4 Unleashed event identity to ensure the cars and wider launch environment functioned as one cohesive system. A hugely exciting project to be involved in, and one we are proud to have played a central role in. Massive thanks to the Formula E team for having the vision to approach all four generations of car as a unified design system. We’ve been humbled to see how strongly the work has resonated across the motorsport world.

And here is the final part of the GEN4 entryway experience we designed for the @fiaformulae race car launch at Paul Ricard Circuit last week. Throughout the sequence, our aim was to alter expectation and engage multiple senses before the final reveal. The climax was the attendee’s first encounter with the GEN4 itself, presented on stage against a large LED screen featuring motion graphics animations built from the identity system developed by @race.service graphic designer @grantarts for Formula E. The motion graphics and animations were then created by my long time collaborator @kadimanicolas over the course of many weeks. The main major sensory layer was the subsonic installation by Berlin based sound artist @stefanieegedy , creating a visceral physical experience as low frequencies moved through the body while attendees encountered the race car for the first time. It was truly amazing. Also integrated into the scene was laser mapping by @masternader , synchronising lasers with both the motion graphics and the livery design to project texture, movement and graphical overlays across the car itself. We also designed the GEN4 livery as part of this wider identity system, developed with @grantarts with the livery design executed by team member @seanbulldesign A big thanks to Formula E for commissioning our Race Service crew to come together and pull this project off. We’ve been working on this event since October of last year, and it was fantastic to finally bring it all together. Props to @ellietory @aoaidan @turhan23 @fiaformulae for backing our creative vision on this one. Also thanks to all of the logistics and technical teams who supported the production. Photos by @photosbyfrancois for @race.service

Let’s step through the concept and experiential design programme behind our @race.service production for the @fiaformulae GEN4 car launch. This was the second major immersive space we created, referred to internally as the Red Lab. The room itself was originally a very mundane back office within the pit lane garages at Circuit Paul Ricard, so the challenge was to create a complete science fiction world while working within the constraints of a very average space. Our solution was to transform it into a working laboratory devoted to the production of the event itself, while also serving as a tactile exploration of the many layers of the GEN4 race car. Engineering drawings, livery studies, diagnostics, statistics, and developmental artefacts all featured throughout the room. The major feature was a temporary light table installation, surrounded by multiple art prints produced across a wide variety of materials and finishes, from paper stocks to transparent and waxed plastics. The aim was to trigger a broader sensory response through tactility, smell, and custom soundscape. The realization of The Red Lab was very much the brainchild of project art director @grantarts We also featured two further characters, played by @itsmirandachan and @amandadonato3 whose movement language drew from Butoh and more abstract physical disciplines. Their role was to transport the audience further through choreography and alien-like presence. Styled by @veniacollection and fitted with custom wearable scanners and body computers by @masternader To complete the atmosphere, the room was flooded with red lighting and haze. From there, guests entered a white corridor we called the Cleansing Ramp, featuring its own custom soundscape, intense bright light, and elevated heat to prepare them for their final encounter with the GEN4 race car. More on that in the next post. Photos by @photosbyfrancois for @race.service

I’m going to step you through the concept, design and production processes of our @race.service programme for the @fiaformulae GEN4 car launch. For the event, we created multiple immersive science fiction environments, the first of which I will detail in this post. This is the entry hall. An experience created from an LED corridor, with synced custom audio visuals by my long term collaborators @kadimanicolas @jordybirch , and two NPC-style sentry characters, played by @ninocence and @littledinosaur . Both characters were styled by @veniacollection and featured custom wearable realtime scanning systems by @masternader . Concepting by @grantarts Our aim was to disarm attendees as they entered the launch, taking them out of an atypical mindset and priming them for an encounter with the future of motorsport. The experience was deliberately obtrusive, and started the process of shifting the attendees’ mindset. Photos by @photosbyfrancois for RS

Visualize. Document. Propose. Secure Budgets. Gather team members. Organize. Organize more. And more. Collaborate. Execute. Document. Restore. Repeat.

Setup day. Our motley @race.service crew arrived into the south of France, outside of Marseille, and we all made our way to Paul Ricard Circuit for the Formula E GEN4 Unleashed setup. We could only start setting up at 7pm, so it turned into an all-night affair. Five different rooms to build, a lot of different technologies to get running, and four performers to outfit and style. One of the main focus points was working with @stefanieegedy on her subsonic installation, and we had the treat of watching her compose right there on the spot, which was quite phenomenal to see. It was a lot of hard work. We had to be very focused and disciplined, but it was also super fun. So many of us are already friends, and anyone new coming into the group, we all instantly became collab partners. Easy. A really strong moment of collaboration and camaraderie. Such a lovely moment. Hard work. Discipline and focus. But also a bonded human experience. Props to @fiaformulae for trusting us! Photos by @photosbyfrancois for @race.service