Meta-cities (Méta-cités)

Miguel Chevalier, 2013

Generative and interactive digital artwork 

Materials: screen, video-projector, specific software and iPad 

Dimensions: projection on a 9 x 6.60 m screen; but dimensions vary from space to space 

Themes: a generator of urban utopia, an exploration of the architecture of cyberspace

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Meta-cities is a virtual urban space inspired by the real. Devoid of both fixed boundaries as well as any kind of ‘centre’, this virtual city comprises a vast lattice of buildings which stream past beneath your very eyes. Indeed the city grows like a matrix; perpetually transforming itself into something else. 

Meta-cities generates itself in a non-programmable chaos of dynamism and flux. We are propelled into a utopian state where nature is consumed by a frantic urbanization and distinct cities have merged into vast urban unities. At its core, Meta-cities is nothing but an immense network: impossible to cover or know in its entirety. 

Meta-cities is a generator of urban worlds; an architecture of cyberspace. This artwork engenders a sensitive universe, which in turn engenders new horizons and even new emotions.  
    
By means of an iPad, this creation can be manipulated. The spectator can move right or left, throw buildings upwards or downwards, and explore new potentialities. By virtue of being a limitless, imaginary world, the creation encourages alternate ways of living and reading urban spaces. 


Power Pixels 2013, Pile Pont exhibition, Space of Contemporary Art, pont de St-Gervais-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie) 
Photos by Miguel Chevalier
Video by Claude Mossessian 

Voice over : Harry Long