Death by Virtual Intimacy
NEXT7 Competition
NEXT7 Competition
This project presents a suburban scenario of virtual habitation with the goals of virtual intimacy. In this construct, a post-consumerist society takes a turn into a dystopian world. Excess of personalized goods and personal space results in the realization of “more is never enough”. Society is lead towards a state of dissatisfaction with the speed of living, freedom to self-express, and limitation in selection. In order to escape the dissatisfaction, individuals exile into a hyper-simulated reality that offer virtual lives with the promise of “no strings attached” experiences. Starting off as a short term escape from reality, the virtual platform becomes the only reality in existence. The freedom of self-expression, speed of access and selection of unlimited experiences lead into hyper-simulated individuals. The platform allows constructing unbound virtual profiles that collectively become the new identity of human existence.
The architectural consequence of this presents a scenario of disintegrating suburban cemeteries that grow into virtual cities. Cities are divided into neighborhoods with centralized transportation channels that connect citizens into virtual reality. Every individual customizes a physical pod for virtual existence. Maintenance of a pod becomes a game of social performance and popularity. Virtual experiences of an individual construct the personal pods, where better performance provides more carbon remains for the physical construct. Each pod in the system goes through a morphogenesis relative to changes in their social status; such as, virtual performance, change in popularity, and proportion of seeking versus being sought. The resulting system presents an ever-growing cityscape relative to changes in both macro and micro conditions. Changes in micro scale are the formal transformation of individual pods, which feed into the ordering system of the overall configuration based on social hierarchy. The collective formal and data changes of the pods dynamically affect the total data, which continuously determines the overall configuration.
The architectural consequence of this presents a scenario of disintegrating suburban cemeteries that grow into virtual cities. Cities are divided into neighborhoods with centralized transportation channels that connect citizens into virtual reality. Every individual customizes a physical pod for virtual existence. Maintenance of a pod becomes a game of social performance and popularity. Virtual experiences of an individual construct the personal pods, where better performance provides more carbon remains for the physical construct. Each pod in the system goes through a morphogenesis relative to changes in their social status; such as, virtual performance, change in popularity, and proportion of seeking versus being sought. The resulting system presents an ever-growing cityscape relative to changes in both macro and micro conditions. Changes in micro scale are the formal transformation of individual pods, which feed into the ordering system of the overall configuration based on social hierarchy. The collective formal and data changes of the pods dynamically affect the total data, which continuously determines the overall configuration.
