RND/ In which you consider a low polygon city of your virtual dreams:
3440 x 1440 .jpg, 64 dithered colors – original images via unknown gamedev on Twitter
We find ourselves in a historical moment of pervasive mediocrity. Fuelled by basic human drives – flights from death and boredom – the new technologies, bright and all consuming, increasingly blur the lines between direct experience and representation. A photograph of an apple is not food and the Internet has neither scent nor texture.
– Jonathan S. Simons, The Analog Sea Review No. 1
The low poly of your virtual dreams would be an escape though from precisely what you aren’t sure. A pleasant enough place or rather non-place (a utopia) it exists precisely because – like all utopias – it is defined by those it does not allow in. That is anyone else but you. You wander its streets at will, never overwhelmed by its sprawling dimensions. You can instantly leap to the top of its downtown buildings and view the city from what you consider an point of existential advantage, nothing however how quiet everything seems. Cars and public transportation vehicles of their own accord, as if on an invisible wireless energy grid. There are no people here in the city – and yet it is still heavily policed by patrolling security droids. What they police you suspect is your very dreams. Keeping the dream alive – that is, the illusion of ontological completeness. Its always sunny but cool here. There is no dogshit dirty needles or violent crime on the streets – no emergency service sirens pierce the air. There’s nothing to burn here, and no citizens burnt out on global Ludocapitalism. (Which is not to say a crime is not being committed.) On your loose ambient wanderings you notice thin data lines connecting two or more objects. These appear, change and disappear seemingly at random and you’ve not yet been able to figure out their meaning. A line connecting a particular parked car will suddenly appear and – for the minute or so it appears you’ll follow it to an empty office building several blocks away. Exploring the building and all you find are endless open plan floors, dead plants, plastic coffee cups and an air of resignation. One of the floors contains a desk with a single note inside, upon which a single word exists: “Absurd.”