Project Data:Exhibition – Augmented Reality
Location: London – United Kingdom
Client: Egyptian Ministry of Culture
Year: 2016
Project Architects: Karim Soliman & Maria Jose Rubira
Phase: Competition Entry – 2nd Prize
Project Description:
The dream of a better society is embedded in our human nature. The idea of a perfect world, a world of happiness and peace is part of us since thousands of years. We see it in walls, textiles or ceramics of ancient civilizations, all with different parameters, all with different intentions, but always with one thing in common: the search for happiness and its unreal connotation. Since then, we never stopped looking for it, trying to visualize it, to touch it and see it, but are we able to make it real? As Tomas More, when we think about utopia we think about a world that is made by its people and as such, it responds and is settled just for their benefit, with no hierarchies, a self-organized system, a rhizome. But as H.G Wells we also think we should embrace it not as a static image, birds-view or top-down, but instead as a dynamic state in which everyone has a voice and a will that will forge the whole. We live in a present of technological utopias where the advances in terms of virtual and augmented reality are an extension of our physical world. We understand a utopia not as a fantasy but as a visionary conception for a better future. With this project we encourage people to believe that their could be realized if they compromise, enhancing and cultivating creativity, speculation and wonderment and critical awareness, believing that the first step to make something real is to visualize, understand it and feel it. We believe in a space that can be our escape to utopia, it can be our inception, a physical dream inside our reality, leading to a consciousness of action and vision.
