Keiichi Matsuda: Augmented Hyper-Reality

Watch the designer’s films that depict a future in which a virtual layer of data is a continual presence in our lives 

For our latest issue we met designer and filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda, who creates films that depict a future in which our everyday lives are densely stuffed with information via a digital overlay, in an effort to spark debates about how technology can and should shape our world.

“Now, everyone has a camera in their phone, and can produce and distribute their own content,” he says. “I was thinking about how that could be applied to architecture, to the creation of space. What if an ordinary person could not only customise their own house, but their own street?”

Watch two of his Augmented (hyper)Reality films – Domestic Robocop and Augmented City 3D – here, and pick up a copy of our Icon 138: Data to read our full interview with Matsuda. His new series of short films, which reimagines the city of Medellín in Colombia, will be launched in early 2015.

Domestic Robocop depicts a world in which a dense web of data accompanies everyday tasks such as making tea 

Augmented City 3D takes the scenario outdoors, demonstrating how digital technology might allow us to customise and interact with our environments like never before 

From smart cities to mass surveillance, our Data issue – available now – looks at the complex relationship between democracy and big data. Take a look inside

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Keiichi Matsuda