Architecture of mental space

The thesis aims to analyze and understand some elements of our modern society and its “virtuality”, the architecture of our new “faceless” existence inside a vacuum of the web. How the virtual actually develops and exists as a true space and place, a true dimensional form. How does it influence our perception of reality and urbanity. This virtuality does not just separately exist in some dark corner of our apartment, it is not constant, fixed or geographically coherent, that would make it too real. Whenever we step out of the house with our phones, we take this virtuality outside. Its interesting to try to understand what happens whenever this partial or not immersion happens inside any form of urbanity - lets say, what happens when we are crossing a street in a city while interacting virtually with the phone - what does the phone change?, how do you see other people?, how fast do you move?, how do you see the surroundings? Your perceptions of the context changes, not just spatially or physically but also temporarily. You project yourself into a strange sort of space ( virtual inside the real or real inside the virtual ) and you or your projection move inside it while moving inside the city, generating a sort of double reality movement, a space inside a space, an act inside an act. We try to discuss key topics like the portable devices or screens ; the human and the influence of the technology on our bodies and selves; the way the devices and its virtuality deforms the space we live in, deforms our city and our perception of it; and we try to somehow describe that “after-space”, that coexistence of virtual and deformed. Apart from the theoretical research the thesis contains a series of theoretical “projects”, a series of “exaggerated” realities that visually describe and conceptually support the theoretical part of this thesis. Each of them embodies a different concept and analyses different possibilities of its utopical / dystopical influence in any random urban form. 7 projects in 7 different cities, generate drastically different reactions. Each project can be considered an ironical critique of our society , a sort of exaggerated model of our own realities. This realities are projected into physical (architectural) elements/objects, inserted into concrete existing contexts.

La tesi busca analizare e capire alcuni elementi della societa moderna e la virtualità architettonica della nostra nuova esistenza ‘faceless’ dentro la web. Come lo virtuale si sviluppa ed esiste come vero spazio e luogo, una vera forma dimensionale; e finalmente come influenza la nostra percezione della realita e la urbanità.