PDF Artist Statement
Virtual Afterlife @evie-allison​ @thesingingape​ Our project was to explore the concept of a Virtual Afterlife, essentially after ones death they are uploaded into this Virtual Reality where they live out an Eternal existence. The whole PDF takes place from the perspective of a recently uploaded subject and you essentially see the V.A. through their eyes. We chose the name “Eternity” and used imagery of both a circle and a “infinite” symbol for our logo to express the idea of immortality and literally eternity which is a very common and significant concept of Religious Afterlife’s that exist today. Eternity itself is also a direct reference to God too, except an Operating System that we would exist inside. We chose a very clean and corporate aesthetic for our PDF, inspired by companies like Apple and Google that use very slick/clean/simple designs. A lot of natural imagery is used as well to reinforce a sort of romanticized afterlife away from the troubles and crowd of cities. This natural imagery also works along side apple and google as both companies are recreating headquarters that attempt to merge nature and man made buildings simultaneously, but in order to do so the land must be destroyed first. Creating an unusual Irony where to go back to nature we have to destroy it and in the V.A. its ironic because going back to nature means entering a virtual environment. One main theme in the PDF is the concept of the “Utopia” which is what Eternity is meant to be. We explore this a number of ways such as through its 10 community guidelines and the Assimilation Procedure. The 10 Community guidelnes are a direct reference to the 10 commandments, essentially they outline that one must respect and love the authority that is Eternity, however its presented in a passive almost condensing manner to not appear threatening. The Assimilation Process itself is quite dramatic because it strips members of their ability to be capable of anger, sadness and to create conflict by deleting aspects of their memories, personality etc.  essentially it ends up removing a chunk of their identity as seen by “C: /identity/” On the DELETE Page. This suggests that humanity is innately incapable of maintaining a Utopian society and that we need to be so altered so much so we cannot even cause conflict. However, what is the cost of stripping us of that ability? The Glitch page was designed to be a someone or some group within the system attempting to break down Eternity, referencing real world revolutions. Essentially its a momentary hacking into the “tutorial” that conveys a very immediate message “THERE IS NO UTOPIA, DO NOT ASSIMILATE, ETERNITY IS OPPRESSION, CHOICE IS NOT FREEDOM”. This creates a dramatic juxtaposition to the whole PDF so far, we decided to use words like “Freedom” and “oppression” to again express real world advocates who fought against harsh governmental systems. 11 pages also feature sound works, the first couple of pages use very natural sounds such as birds, wind chimes and waterfalls, creating a pleasant and open atmosphere. The Glitch page interrupts all this with a deafening tone as though the whole system has crashed. After this the sounds slowly become more computer and digitized as it slowly descends deeper into the system and eventually to the Assimilation Process. The last page has no sound to further confront the audience with the persons identity being deleted right infront of them.
