Post-Digital City

Post-Digital City is an atmospheric generative-video-artwork, entirely coded in Processing.

It depicts the author’s concept of a post-digital city, with its inescapable and constant transformations occurring at different levels and speeds.

Thus the screen is divided into three main areas:

(1) The “cityscape”, which overtakes the central part of the screen, with its buildings in constant mutation, the old giving way to the new, where architectural trends foster exhibitionism and renewal. But decay also sets in, as homes and public spaces are abandoned, their ruins collapse and are covered in vegetation, while green areas are greedily overtaken by new smart-building constructions, advertised and purchased online. We watch them merge into one another, as if often happens when we are travelling by bus, tram or train and only catch glimpses from the corner of our eyes.

(2) The “cloud”, looming over the cityscape, with its multitude of brands, services, surveillance, data gathering and hype, relying on increasingly more intricate electronics and data centres. It gravitates over – and dominates – the post-digital city.

(3) The “people”, in constant physical motion through the city, using an increasingly larger number of transports with a digital component, from scooters to taxis and buses. But their minds also travel virtually, through the constant use of their sophisticated mobile devices, social networks and applications. Paradoxically their reactions and emotions appear to become more basic and parameterised, unlike the galloping elaboration of the algorithms and services behind their mundane lives.