""The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy;" – with this line begins Rafman's Woods of Arcady. The work juxtaposes a computer generated recitation of Yeat's poem The Song of the Happy Shepherd, along side video of scenes captured from the artist's explorations of the virtual environment of Second Life. The simultaneously fantastic and vapid virtual landscapes documented by the artist are at home with Yeat's imagery "Where are now the warring kings? An idle word is now their glory."

Imago (an incomplete work) (2010) by Jon Rafman

This single-channel video explores the effects of technology and information overload on the contemporary psyche. Set in a virtual tech-noir urban space populated by strange hybrids of non-humans and augmented people, part of the expansive, fractured narrative focuses on the continued adventures of Xanax Girl and her search for her companion—a hybrid dog/seal with the head of a boy—who has been abducted. The film, which arose from the artist’s daily practice of animating his dreams using hobbyist 3D software, weaves together deep-web imagery with hardboiled detective story tropes and repressed libidinal fantasies to create a nightmarish vision of an internet addict’s unconscious. The film features an original score by Oneohtrix Point Never and James Ferraro.

Landscapes for Neon Parallel - Game Ambience (2015) by Jon Rafman

In the Realms of Gold (2012) by Jon Rafman - Music by Oneohtrix Point Never Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Rather than the charms of the lyre, contemporary technological tools, Google Street View and Google Earth, beckon as the pathway for our narrator to regain memories and recapture traces of his lost love. In the film, they are as captivating and enthralling as charming as any lyre in retrieving the other: at first they might seem an open retort to critics of new technology who bemoan the lack of the tangible presence of the other in our interactions on the Internet.

"Poor Magic effects a beautiful yet terrifying rendition of contemporary consciousness, gesturing towards civilisation's listless drift beyond the corporeal, and technology's infinite desire to penetrate and artificially replicate human essence. Computer-generated crowd simulations run berserk in dreamlike repetition, while a 3D endoscopic journey takes us through the body's most intimate passages."

In a journey that mixes cinematic genres, a legendary arcade video gamer moves seamlessly through actual and virtual space and time. While he cherishes the intense experiences of mastering a renowned video game, or defeating an archrival, he comes to question the significance of his legacy and the tradition itself.

A compelling mix of attraction and repulsion, Mainsqueeze is entirely composed of footage found online, surfing the deep web.

Kool-Aid Man travels through a variety of worlds from the video game Second Life.

‘Still Life (Betamale)’ draws images from a range of online fetish sites, engaging with the theme of obsessive desire. The narrated version of the album track is immersed in the simultaneously captivating and disturbing world of internet subcultures.

Part live-action footage, video game sequences, simulated chat, poetic voiceover and virtual landscape, Neon Parallel 1996 is in Rafman’s own words an attempt at creating a “lost vaporwave classic.”

Legendary Reality is a science-fiction essay film that portrays the recollections of a solitary narrator imprisoned in his own mind. Using a non-linear structure that weaves together dreams and memory, Jon Rafman creates a stream-of-consciousness meditation on art, identity and time that draw on the work of Leonard Cohen. The film intercuts digitally processed found photos and 3D landscapes sourced from video games to tell the enigmatic voyage of one man's soul.

SHADOWBANNED (2018) uses the aesthetics of internet conspiracy theories to tell the story of an anonymous narrator on an enigmatic, transdimensional journey. The film unfolds across multiple universes wherein dreams are recycled waste products and meaning has been all but lost. The narrator arms himself with artificial memories of artificial pasts in order to protect himself from the future. SHADOWBANNED is a meditation on the perception of history, esoteric culture and the implosion of meaning in our hyper-accelerated times.

The film portrays a post-human dystopia featuring faceless 3-D avatars continuously tortured in abstract digital space, a terrifying image of a future where all humanity is uploaded to a virtual purgatory and endlessly abused.

“Wherever I go, there I am” is the old adage, be it Yogi Berra or the Buddha. The detached gaze of a satellite image or an automatic Street View camera confronts a human consciousness whose ability to seek connectedness and meaning has already been compromised. Contemporary technological tools simultaneously open and close vistas on our inner and outer worlds.

A journey through virtual death.

A piece of a gamer's past vanishes without a trace, triggering a quest for answers. Along the way, he encounters uncanny obstacles and part-human avatars – meticulously crafted from found pixels and cyber history – which call his own recollections of youth into question. Early internet aesthetics collide with the dark edges of online folklore, creating an unsettling yet deeply funny commentary on how technology pervades and mediates our humanity, memory, and concept of self.

Experimental narrative animation using hobbyist 3D animation and inspired by niche genres of computer-generated erotica.

In Rafman's latest Virtual Reality piece, Transdimensional Serpent (2016), a four-minute Oculus Rift experience, viewers experience immersive environments of fields, deserts and forests populated with an array of fantastic beings. Visually compelling, ambiguous and frequently unsettling, Transdimensional Serpent was originally presented amidst an immersive and highly tactile sculptural installation at Frieze London 2016. It was also featured as part of the New Museum's/ New York Times' 'First Look' online platform Launch.