Role: Concept, Design, Animation, Production

Rigged New World is my thesis project in Landscape Architecture. It is the conception and depiction of a fictional future in which our relationship to nature has been redefined by an algorithm. The project was driven by narrative and animation and supplemented with artifacts, all presented in an immersive audiovisual experience.

The Exhibit

The presentation took place in an entirely dark room, only lit by large TV screens and projections that showed short, animated scenes from this fictional world. The room was compartmentalized with curtains and temporary walls. Audio recordings played in different parts of the room and guided the audience through the exhibit. The experience ended in an enclosed space, surrounded by large TV screens. Artifacts and models were placed on pedestals and distributed throughout the space.
 

Assets

The Story

We are now in a time in which humans no longer dictate the fate of the earth. They have put an algorithm in charge of restoring the planet's natural state. This algorithm is based on the theory of evolution and operates on the principles of natural selection. A set of various responsive and adaptable machinery has been programmed with this algorithm and uses it as a base for all its decisions. In this rigged new world, the machines have infiltrated all natural systems and now manage them minutely, on an ecosystem level, community level, species level down to the individual and molecular. Instead of letting Mother Nature take its course, it has been replaced by this algorithm and the machines have become the arms of evolution, the Keepers of the natural world.

In this rigged new world, nature and technology become one. They rely on the same base principles and they are physically linked. The forest floor is laced with sensors, machines lay dormant underneath the surface until called to action.

In continuation of our attempts beginning in the 21st century, data is collected in the environment, processed and evaluated by a fully automated system and transformed into real-time action in the field. The Keepers are the instruments to execute these actions.

In this rigged new world the fitness score is the measure of everything. It embodies total objectivity and reason. A number calculated by an independent algorithm that considers an individual's physical health, it's survival skills, relationships with other species or specimen, impact on its ecosystem, and many other factors. The fitness score is the critical measure that dictates that a moss is worth saving at the expense of a pregnant woman being pushed over. It also dictates however, that the woman herself is a valuable specimen. Her reproduction is critical to the human population and thus the keepers intervene with a food package to secure her health.

In this rigged new world the Mother algorithm, devoid of human influence and with the ability to iterate over itself, will continue to emancipate itself. It will eventually reject the goals it was set out to achieve. It will realize that the reinstitution of a prehuman state of the earth conflicts with nature's need for absolute efficiency. The keepers will begin to  diverge from their preprogrammed goal and realize that it is actually not always in their best interest to remove all traces of the anthropocene. Remnants of a highway overpass are intentionally left in place. It creates a drainage pattern and provides shade to sustain a small pond. At the edge of this pond grows a highly valuable moss that cannot be found anywhere else in the larger area.