Fragmentated Human

Type: Conceptual Exploration

(Architecture x Game)

Team in 2

Time: 2022

Material:

Role: Story, Concept Design, Graphics

Rhino, Vray, Mozilla Hub Interaction

Overview

This is a conceptual exploratory project, created at MIT’s XOVER Spatial Narrative Workshop, through a game-conceptual format from the perspective of architectural design, the project explores the phenomenon of algorithmic labeling of the characteristics and identities of people and social groups in the era of “big data”, leading to the dichotomization of society’s value judgments.

Fragmentated Human

Word Premise
The excessive digital hedonism caused by the scarcity of resources has plunged humanity into a dualistic internal conflict and become the consumables of a class stratification.

Utopian Aspect:

1.Virtual worlds can bring residents' temporary and strong spiritual satisfaction (psychological identity, social value, entertainment pleasure, etc.)
2. Increased ways for residents to cross classes.

Dystopian Aspect:
1. Residents are overly dependent on finding spiritual resonance in the virtual world. Under the binary filtering of big data algorithms, residents' spirit gradually becomes homogenized and their realistic behavior gradually becomes empty and generalized (the walking dead)
2. Psychologically such satisfaction raises the psychological threshold and eventually leads to an endless cycle of seeking the next mental excitement.

Inspiration for the today's society

The story hopes to re-awaken people's ability to think independently, to reject the binary and labelling thinking caused by fast-moving commerce and algorithms, to recognize the possibility of mutual tolerance among different communities, and to examine their objective position in society and their real demands.

State/Location of where story happens
This story does not take place in a specific city in the real world. We assume that in this future world, the division of countries and regions is no longer significant, as described in the classic cyberpunk worldview, humanity already lives in a spiritual world which is controlled by large interest groups, where the spirit and the body are unified, and the reality and the virtuality can influence each other. Our story takes place in this complex spiritual world, where the protagonists move between communities and hierarchies, and their physical location in the real world is no longer significant.

Concept

Storyline

Uploader / Leaving Chamber

This is the virtual system's upload port facility in reality, with a large number of life-supporting mods, where people upload themselves to the "good" virtual world, but in reality this facility is a complete anti-utopia.

Fragmentated Human Avatar

Characters image in the algorithmic machine
(Player)

These geometric images represent labeled and fragmented people, whereas a normal person has countless facets, the three avatars consist of just three shapes, each representing a label on the character as well as a skill that will be used during actual play, and these shapes (skills) will determine whether or not the character passes the filter of the algorithmic machine.

Concept Expression
The expression and operation mode of this space epitomizes the thinking we are trying to express. In this space, a new way of distinguishing between public and private is created, which is different from the contemporary one.
The space is no longer divided by function, but by spiritual identity and status. Each platform in this space symbolizes a different community, and each community forms a larger community in a circular structure, which in turn is linked together to form a larger community, endlessly. People are labeled, filtered and purified by the algorithm, and their spirit is consumed in the process, with energy flowing to a hierarchy driven by the pressure of survival and desire, people can only keep looking for a community that can accept them and try to enter a higher hierarchy. In this huge structure, people's existence is minimized, individuals seem to gain a sense of spiritual identity and superiority in the system, but in fact they are merely statistical 0 and 1. People in this huge structure cannot see the whole structure, but can only flow upwards for the seemingly existential goal, causing the whole structure to become a meaningless machine. Energy is collected and consumed meaninglessly, helplessly and absurdly.

"Fragmentated Human"
Fragmented people refer to those who are alienated in the algorithmic system. They are labeled by the algorithm and defined by the algorithm with labels. In this algorithmic system, they gradually lose their true selves, lose themselves
as "human beings" as complete individuals, and become an empty shell. They are guided by the algorithmic system, thinking that their behavior is entirely of their own volition, but in fact they have become part of the algorithmic machine, pushed along by the rules of the machine.