DIGISCAPE FROM REALITY

“A Digiscape from reality”
Contributor:
Anvilla El [poems “Preparation for Leaving” & “Home”]
The concept
“What is even going on?”; We live in a constantly changeable socio-political and
economical environment that could be perfectly described as a Kafkian cosmos of
absurdity. In my attempt to escape reality, uncertainty and hopelessness, I begun
building a parallel universe; a safe and peaceful digitopia for mental departures. This
project articulates digitally the relationship between the city and its habitants
through the dialogue of two foreign citizens of London who try to shape their ID
interacting with this unfamiliar environment.
The concept in detail
The great escape
This project was fuelled by my own sensibilities and my necessity of moulding a
place that I could call “home” since I left my home country, Greece. Being part of
Millenials’’ compelled -by political and economical situations- nomadism, this digitopia
gave me the chance to digitally sprout my roots. Millennials have disowned
current political systems as an educated and conscious political statement. We
are disappointed by the socio-political and economical decisions of the generation
X as well as the structure of values and ethics within which we were brought
up. Being shaken around by the constant shift of geopolitical winds has worn us
down. At the same time we grew up in a gold-pink, romanticized bubble constructed
by the feeling of being special, “mommy’s dearest”, in combination with the
addiction to instant gratification, individualism, consumerism and social media
culture. This bubble bursts every time we have to fit in. But fit in where? In a word
of ever-changing environments, we had to mutate in order adapt. We have inscribed
fluidity as well as the feelings of instability in our DNA, and thus we refrain
from getting too attached on a single status quo. Instead the cyberspace is our
great escape from a reality which is too challenging to deal with. That reality has
caused a mutation; and this mutation in its turn might even feel that the environment
more natural to it is virtual/digital. After all, what is even the idea of “reality” if
not another illusion?
The digitopia
The concrete structures of the buildings and the intangible structures of the English
language affect equally our emotional and behavioural patterns, in a mutual
co-dependent relationship. In this digitopia I depicted our emotional mapping of
London, reflecting on the mental photographs we took during our journeys in the
city. The process I followed to insert this in my digitopia was the following: I sent
Chang material that represent my image of the city through different means of
expression. Adapting L Wittgenstein’s theory, I thought the perfect way to obtain
genuine and raw answers from her, was to start a conversation at her mother
language! So, we discussed about space, colours, volumes, the relationship between
light & shadow and between body & space. What was considered to be the
second step, I translated her answers using Google translator, an inadequate and
misleading medium, surrendering, to the given fact that some things are meant to
be lost in (Google) translation. The result of that conversation was this digitopia -
or in other words this “digital heterotopia”. As my relationship with the city and its
citizens develops, this digital city will be infinitely accumulating in cyber time and
space. Our dialogue with Chang, took place in the “cyber neighbourhood”.