A Civic
Architecture
for the
immersive
internet
09.05.23 ()

Coming together in a one of the ubiquitous zoom meetings, a small group of students and teachers listen as Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, the directors of Space Popular introduce themselves.() The Architects, sitting side by side, hundreds of kilometres away from us speak to us through a tinny-sounding laptop microphone. The duo has been working on speculative and seminal works exploring our future in a more immersive, more interactive internet.

Taking us on a tour through their body of works, they tell us about the Wardian Case, an installation in the Palazzo Reale Milano, retelling the story of Jason and the Argonauts; a Greek epic poem that has endured two and a half millennia, whilst pondering the nature of Information and the vehicles it travels in. They follow up with the London Freestyle,() an exploration of Architecture and its contextual relations to mass media. Then they present the Punto de Inflexión,() a virtual space meant to host a convention for the Arquia Foundation. Lastly, the artists arrive at one of their most ambitious works, the portal galleries.

It is a collection of portals in fiction.() Space Popular have explored how they take on different shapes, and how they might be employed to move between digital spaces. After all, if we move from a two-dimensional internet to a more immersive one, we will have to find a better way to connect these three-dimensional spaces. For Space Popular portals are the clear answer. They enable one to seamlessly step from one space into a completely different one.() Currently, when exploring immersive platforms, we must exit them and enter anew if we want to switch programs. However, if we want to create a seamless experience in a truly three-dimensional internet, we will have to remove these boundaries, allowing us to step across the internet, simply by parting the fabric of reality and walking through.

With this vision of a seamless, boundless future internet, the duo leaves us thinking about the rapidly changing nature of the digital environments around us.

Currently, they are dominated by some of the largest companies worldwide.() With their talk, Space Popular nudges us to think about the bridges we can build and the communities we can form to shape the future of our internet.