Virtual Insanity
A though experiment written by myself, exploring a concept piece that delves into design fiction and technology in an alternate timeline of late-stage-capitalist collapse.
March 11th, 2064
Weather Morrigan sits at the old desk in the musky room and admires the rust and age of a forgotten relic. He pulls out his small electronic tablet, aged and fading, with a distinct small crack across the left of the screen. Although now considered old technology at the end of its life, he finds himself unable to part with the old thing.
Opening his mail app, he notices a new message with the subject line “WANT TO ESCAPE REALITY?” from the sender “vrxxxperiences.”
“World's nearly collapsed and yet the spam still comes” Weather whispers to himself with a snarky undertone.
Frustrated, he sets the tablet down and pulls out some food he bought at FreshWay, the major corporate grocery chain operating in this area. He moves the can of “Tuna Macaroni Salad; BioOrganically Balanced protein supplement” around in his hand. He's not looking forward to eating it.
Since things went downhill, most of the food you can access in America is canned or preserved. FreshWay, which ran a monopoly on most rural and regional areas in the country, saw a shift in major offerings around 2052 where we saw the removal of the fresh produce sections in their stores. There wasn't really enough people willingly working in the agricultural industry to support national fresh produce for a population of around 580 million, so society shifted to bio-produced lab grown foods that were both cheaper for corporations to manufacture as well as easier to keep stocked and sell.
The problem with this, as Weather continues to think, is that this “Biometrically Balanced” (A new term thought up by the corpo big-wigs to make this preservative filled faux food sound healthy and normal) is that it just doesn't taste good, or nearly anything like the original. Even only being 22, Weather still remembers what it was like to have home cooked meals using real meats and fresh produce.
He thinks about how his generation was referred to as Generation Beta with the archaic/now defunct naming systems his parents used. “Yeah, never gonna be a generation alpha while being fed this slop” he remarks to himself while pressing open the rapid-open tab on the can.
While eating, a window pops up, hovering inside 3d space about a meter away from Weathers face. ‘CALL FROM ARIA” it reads on the first line, and then “ANSWER” and “DECLINE” directly under it. Weather does not reach out to press or interact with any buttons, instead, after a short pause, a BMI (brain-machine interface) attached to a neurological sensor reading his thoughts scans for his desire to answer and talk with her, and from there chooses to answer the call.
“Hey” Weather says curiously.
“Hey, got a second? This is really big, I might have discovered a lead on the…
Design Fiction
TBD Catalog, an example of Design Fiction in the form of a product catalog from the future, available as an actual tangible product catalog at shop.nearfuturelaboratory.com. (Julian Bleecker, 2012)
This topic has been in my head a lot since Heathers talk at the recent residency. I find the topic super interesting because I find myself also within this “futurist” tech driven space of people who love to look to the future. My only problem, however, is that I can be more of a realist sometimes and I struggle to fit in with a lot of the “futurist” tech bros who see nothing but utopia and positives in incoming technology.
I don't think of myself as overly pessimistic, or overly optimistic. I want the world to become a better place and to thrive, I want new technology to come out and drive us forward with innovation and prosperity. Unfortunately though, the reality of those technologies is that they exist to create the user into a monster. The monster is the consumer, and the consumer continues to over indulge themselves while the corporations line their pockets.
Under capitalism, this is the driving force behind technological advancement. There is not one corporation that doesn't exist in the end to make a profit, and so I always side with the air of caution and wonder why the product is coming to market. Virtual reality and the metaverse, for example, were originally topics that we as futurists loved to discuss. We talked about tons of topics like full dive and immersion tech, haptics and wireless tracking, online Metaverse communities and even cities, and much more.
And then, Facebook purchased Oculus, Oculus became Meta, and Meta tried to steal and coin the term Metaverse for themselves and their products as if we would just accept that and be happy? Fuck that, man. This is because, of course, the Metaverse was not ever intended to be ran by a corporation with the intention of using it as a money making tool, or a way to advertise. It was supposed to be a user driven experience of creating and making and doing our own damn thing away from the capitalist systems held in real life. This isn't to say that a Metaverse wouldn't be allowed to make money, everyone needs to eat, however to hyper consumerize the metaverse is antithetical to it's very existence.
A picture taken inside the “Virtual Market 3 (2019)” world inside of VRChat. Players can join the world and actively shop around for models, avatars, effects, props and more created by artists inside the VRChat community.
The closest we've ever got to a Metaverse in virtual reality was not some corporate attempt at it, but was actually in the form of the game VRChat (2017), where users could be any avatar they wanted, upload any world they wanted, and generally just do whatever they wanted except a small blanket of rules that protected people from serious problems such as racism or discrimination.
Connecting this back into design futures and the story I wrote thinking about it, I think this topic connects a lot in with what I've talked about previously. We've talked about industrial collapse and the affect on people, and we've talked about the futurist content of disrupt and it's unique content creation style. How does it all tie in with my thoughts on where my work is going?
The act of creating design futures is, to steal it directly our own Tim Murray:
“
Designers are professional imaginers (because “imaginary professionals” sounds less credible). Or vocational future-casters, if you prefer. We look at the current reality, and squinting through it, we imagine possible futures that might be coaxed out of the soil of the present situation.
”
In on my previous writings I talked about various medias that covered a wide range of topics from dystopia, to apocalypse, to alternate futures. I mentioned how they are all warning signs, telling civilization about the damages of treading too close to the sun, and how those who have done so have not come back from it since.
Today, it clicked, design fiction is that medium for us, as designers, to express the warning signs of the path civilization is on. I never knew what the word was or how to express this idea within the creative space and confines of our field, and now I feel I have clarity on it. I feel a very strong pull in this direction telling me to focus on this, to read the signs, to make the signs.
Rather than seeing myself working in the interest of capital and creating assets, branding, or work for investor happiness, I see myself more enjoying my own space in design creating these design future landscapes and making the signs. Through this I could make my money as a professor and keep my design pure, and untainted by the claws of capital.
Below, another thought experiment of a conversation between the characters of this fictional story.
…“Is this it?” Aria asks. “Yeah, I had to drive an hour to the big inner city FreshWay to get it” Weather answers, “it was expensive too, came to $5.78 for this alone.”
“Jesus, I can't believe how much even a yogurt costs nowadays” JT exclaims in a sad, melancholic way.
“So what's the deal with it?” Grant says, seemingly not as interested in a stupid new yogurt brand.
“read the label, what does it say?” says Weather, Grant looks down at the label and starts reading aloud:
“YoVegan: Non-Fat Probiotic Vanilla Greek Yogurt” Grant then turns the label around, “Vegan Safe, no authentic cow product included. Also there's a sticker, **it reads Made BioOrganically Balanced for you!”
Aria grabs the container out if Grant's hand and exclaims “That's not what I read! Let me see it.” She then starts reading her version of the label aloud.
“YoFit: Non-Fat 0 Calorie Vanilla Greek Yogurt, the other side reads 0 Cal, 0 Carbs, all flavor. Now you can have your cake, and eat it too.”
“That doesn't make sense, I literally just read it” Grant replies, confused.
“Can I see?” JT asks calmly.
“Here, check it out” Aria says, then hands them the container.
“huh, it says YoFresh: Non-Fat Supplemental Vanilla Greek Yogurt” they say, *“*mine says Filled with supplements guaranteed to boost testosterone and increase fibers”
“Now turn off your ARVisions. it's crazy.”
The group simultaneously turns off their embedded augmented reality lens, then study the container again.
“Wha- There's nothing here, it's just barcodes!” Grant exclaims shocked.
The yogurt sits on the counter beside them, a white container with a white label. The only information on the label are a series of barcodes that relays information to the ARVs image relays and projects the design onto the label in real life.
“This is what I was talking about, these labels are using our ARVs to do personal targeted marketing at us, the label is different for everyone.”
“So it's marketing labels based on our advertising information it collects from our online data?” Aria asks, clearly not too happy about the thought.
“No, that couldn't make sense, I still don't openly identify as trans to anyone other than you guys, I still mark myself as a girl online” They pauses, “but it was advertising testosterone to me…”
“That's the problem,” Weather replies “I think that they’re using the NeuraV system to market to us based on our thoughts.”
“What? No way. That would be an extreme breach of privacy, even for a corporation. How could they even do that legally?” Grant quickly says, lost in his own thought.
“I think they are, and honestly, I don't think they care about whether it's legal or not.”
The room sits silent, everyone clearly uncomfortable with the new information. After a long pause, Weather…
As I mentioned, I find myself not feeling quite safe in these futures thought up by the futurists. A great example is the Vancouver Airports YVR 2037 initiative. The project lays out a detailed plan associated with creating a future for the Vancouver Airport involving Augmented Reality, robots, AI companions and more.
A Link to the article in question.
The following is the video played at the end of the article, but to me, I easily can see that this idealist structure is riddled with holes and questions on where this all could go wrong. It reads more to me as corporate propaganda than it does an exciting look into the future.
YVR 2037 Future Concept Design Fiction, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUjzjHRMVQ0&ab_channel=VancouverAirport, 2017
The general lack of awareness in an average consumer of technology and modern amenities causes this entire thing to look fantastical and magical. However, what interests me is how it works under the surface.
What are the implications of these technologies existing?
Does the AR interface show you advertisements and POP-UPS similar to the HYPER-REALITY videos from previous writings?
Is the coffee and snack being advertised to you based on personal data collection, if so, how much do companies know about your life?
How secure is the technology, what if the young boys AI companion is hijacked and leads him towards the wrong person?
Many questions can be asked in line with this, and it could generally be seen as a very closed-off pessimistic view of this concept. I feel it’s important to question the nature of these advertisements and run thought experiments on them. Although these ideas are not from a for-profit institution, they still seek your money and investment, their innovation is driven not by improving human experience, but by gaining and increasing their own capital. Improving human experience is often just a means to gain that investment, and can easily be thrown away or placed on the sidelines when a organization decides they already have what they need.
Something they say themselves they “Wear proudly on their sleeves.” This line of thinking doesn’t just extend to the for-profit private airports, but also to both the government owned public spaces. The main problem comes with what you let leak into the environment of the airport, hostile and invasive advertising becomes an issue at the systemic level.
James Smart remarks in his article on Dystopian Design:
“
Up until a few years ago, a world in which everyone carries a device that tracks them everywhere and sends the results to be pored over by intelligent machines would have seemed like a classic dystopia. Today, it’s just life. Is it any surprise that pessimistic visions in which we are all just cogs in a machine are increasingly common?
”
To end off with, I think it’s said really well in Jamiroquai’s 1996 song “Virtual Insanity” from the album “. In the unique and well crafted music video that was revolutionary for it’s time, singer Jay Kay dances and moves around inside a rotating room that slides him and the furniture around him together in sync.
Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity (1996)
Virtual Insanity is, to me, a piece of design fiction in the sense that Jamiroquai singing to us the warning signs of what the world will look like as we move closer to modernity. He use jarring Visual Effects like cockroaches, crows, and blood that starkly contrast against the clean, perfectly organized white rooms he’s dancing in. In the song, he sings:
And it's a wonder men can eat at all
When things are big that should be small
Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doin' for us?
And I'm givin' all my love to this world
Only to be told
I can't see, I can't breathe
No more will we beAnd nothin's gonna change the way we live'
Cause we can always take, but never give
And now that things are changing for the worse, see
Whoa, it's a crazy world we're livin' in
And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give theseFutures made of virtual insanity, now
Always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound
For we all live undergroundAnd I'm thinkin' what a mess we're in
Hard to know where to begin
If I could slip the sickly ties of earth that man has made
And now every mother can choose the colour
Of her child, that's not nature's wayWell, that's what they said yesterday
There's nothin' left to do but pray
I think it's time I found a new religion
Whoa, it's so insane to synthesize another strain
There's something in these futures that we have to be told
Jamiroquai is crafting a dystopian world in which technology continues to advance further into a technological age, and we become more and more dependent on it, treading into realms we don’t belong. He comments on gene modification, the over-consumption of food, and how we’ve dived so far in that it’s hard to even know where to begin to fix the problems. He warns that as we become more immersed in these worlds, we lose touch with our own realities and life itself becomes “Virtual.” What is real and what is not?
What steps do I take to craft my form of a future that shows warning signs, while simultaneously engaging that concept with design fiction and incorporating it in with my work? That’s what I’ll think about more moving into my next writing.
