“An Attention Economy Theme Park”
(Currently Ongoing Workshop)
WIP Narrative:
Planetary Scale computation is evolving the way we digitize the physical urban space. Its byproduct is the aggregation of layers of data representations collected voluntarily through small portals in our pockets or involuntarily through state apparatus for surveillance. The new urban space is read as the hybridization of physical conditions activated and informed by several types of computation, such as communication, geolocation, and surveillance technologies, and mainly social media, and more recently meta-worlds. Digital and physical spaces become conditioned on the perceptual value actors and observers project into both worlds. The interaction of these participants becomes a way to exchange attention as a valuable commodity resulting in a balancing act of a highly competitive supply by the actors and the ever-growing demand of the observers.
It is possible to understand the new hybrid space as an actual place, as in its physical sense, where the more recent digital or internet culture is evolving. To this regard, the new space is commonly informed by the collaborative, yet involuntary curation of social media. The space representation of its physicality becomes a result of a biased and emotive collective curation. Hence, the world perception or image is now limited or distorted by a curation that allocates discrete value to places and their inhabitants, within a newfound attention economy.
This film project is a speculation on the manifestation of the hybridized urban space. The cuts search to understand digital iconography messaging and space making in a digital culture where surveillance and users’ cameras are both uninterruptedly streaming, delivering collectively curated places, a self- curated personas through social media. The ultimate argument of “never-ending theme park” proves appropriate for depicting the perpetual state of curation of the favored places and personas of hybridized urban space.
Made in Google Colab, Blender, and PlayCanvas.
Type: Workshop
Institution: CURRENT & Futurly
Instructors: Provides Ng, Alexey Yansitov, Artem
Konevskikh, & Eli Joteva.
Research: Volumetric Cinema, Machine
Learning Text Generator, Rigging,
WebGL Gaming Enviroment.
Source Clips for Final Reel:
1. Drone Top View Camera.
2. Characters Intro FFP Camera.
3. Influencer FFP Camera.
4. Volumatric 360 Camera.
5. Volumetric 360 Aerial Camera.
6. LA Live Personas - Test Animation.