Fewture is an original Sci-Fi AR/VR experience, immersing the user in possible variations of the future. Each variation is envisioning a speculative reality based on our world’s current condition. While Fewture variation #1 – Glitter Shores – suggested a flooded world with humanity residing on islands made of glitter and plastic debris, Fewture variation #2 – Server Farm Penthouses – pictures a world designed and governed by Artificial Intelligence. Ranging between utopia and dystopia, Fewture’s scenarios are optimistic in tone and follow personal narratives of female protagonists.
About the scenes
Fewture variation 2 happens in a dystopian city in a future where the air is toxic and each human is constricted to their private habitat: conveniently optimized penthouses on top of skyscrapers made of server farms. In this short intro scenario, the protagonist (acted by yours truly due to a lack of Hollywood budgets), invites the audience o peak into her life in solitude.
The first scene introduces the server farm city at a murky daylight and the second scene reveals its spectacular luminous character at night. The third scene is a dream a protagonist is having, about finally meeting real live people for the first time.
While the first two “real” scenes are built artificially using Unity and some 3d modeling and character building tools, the third dream scene is edited from “real’ footage shot in my living room with a 360° camera. The surrealistic look was achieved with costumes, original art and projection mapping transforming the space.
Movement
Earlier iterations of the scenes included complex cinematic camera movements. However, readings on motion sickness and testing the experience with a headset led me to stepping back and limiting movement to the necessary minimum. The final experience avoids any acceleration and movement on several axised at a time. The VR as a medium and the skyscraper environment I’ve envisioned are disorientating enough as is.
Server Farm Skyscrapers – Architecture
The server farm penthouses are artificial-intelligence optimized living spaces designed for comfortable singular living. Each penthouse is placed on the prime-real-estate spot of a server farm skyscraper.
Server farm rings grow upwards whenever a greater computational force is needed, in a mechanical process based on growth of a bamboo. Robotic arms then gently lift the penthouse above the skyscraper until the maintenance is complete. The robotic arms tend to securely place the penthouse back in place – most of the times.
Server Farm Penthouses – Interior
All the materials within each penthouse are embedded with a grid of Dragonfly-pixels™* (*Not really a trademark. yet). A tiny microcontroler operating both a miniature RGB lamp and a camera. The data received from the camera grid is processed just like an image is processed in the brain of a dragonfly, whose eyes are made of 30,000 separate lenses each. The Dragonfly-pixels are what makes the lovely light-art spectacle possible. They also surveil each tenant permanently and multi-dimensionally.
Next steps:
- Adding post-processing effects to enhance volumetric fog and bloom, refine lighting and match look & feel of the computer-generated scenes to the photographed scene
- Optimizing the world for faster performance by flattening the server farm skyscraper city into a skybox
- Adding more interactivity to the scenes besides the option to look around:
- Allowing the protagonist to move and walk across her penthouse
- Set objects as triggers to explore the interior: delivery window, trash chute, sleep chamber door and the forever sealed exit door at the core of the penthouse structure
- Set the exterior lighting of our protagonist’s penthouse
Fewture variation #2 is a VR experience pilot created as a midterm assignment at Sarah Rothberg’s “Poetics of Space” class at ITP, NYU.