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Let’s Work Together

stavros.didakis@nyu.edu

Invisible Cities

Architectures & Speculations

Funded by IMA at NYU Shanghai, and supported by Unity China and Planet One.

In the showcase Invisible Cities faculty and students of NYU Shanghai presented to the public digital creations that utilize contemporary methods of production with cutting-edge computational tools and practices. The works are divided into two main categories, as they represent outcomes of the courses Media Architecture, which is led by Prof. Stavros Didakis, and Hello Metaverse! a course led by Prof. Christian Grewell, and co-delivered with Profs. Ian Xingchen Zhang, Jung Hyun Moon, and Anna Greenspan. Both courses are part of the program Interactive Media Arts, at NYU Shanghai.

The course Media Architecture examines media and technology in relation to the architectural space, analyzing artistic and creative applications, and focusing on reframing physical spaces as hybrids that span spectra, dimensions, and realities. This current project uses Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities as the main source of inspiration, and presents a series of audiovisual narratives as speculative scenarios of architectural and urban spaces that perfectly mix art, design, technology, and science.

For the course Hello Metaverse! the Black Sun project was presented, a virtual space that allows users to enter, interact with each other, and develop their own rooms and content. Each user is able to utilize their own hand gestures for controlling the environment, and they can experience the simultaneous exchange of objects and actions with other users. The aim of the Black Sun is to consider how our communications of our daily lives start shifting to virtual spaces in which alternative realities and experiences are possible.

The event took place in Planet One (Sinar Mas Plaza), and it made use of three large LED displays, as well as a dedicated VR are for the presentation of the Hello Metaverse! project.

Unity China officially supported this showcase by sharing valuable resources for the final exhibited works, such as technical expertise and awarding the best practices.