PLAZA is a 13 minute audio-visual journey through an abandoned, slowly collapsing virtual reality. It is presented as an edited series of explorations into this landscape, long after the inhabitants have disappeared, following the rediscovery of the source code from an abandoned server farm. The core theme is the shift that has taken place from the communal and egalitarian origins of the internet to its current state - with a small number of very powerful companies providing services marketed as ‘free’, but which are in fact paid for by consumers relinquishing their own data privacy. These services are designed to keep interaction sustained for as long as possible, and the collected data is used to subtly shift our choices and opinions in the real world.

It is a manifestation of the desire to form new ways of reclaiming and occupying these vast corporate digital infrastructures and the integration of open source approaches to design, egalitarian principles, and self governance into the way we exist in online space. PLAZA is also a nod to the ‘warez’ scene - enthusiasts that dismantle, explore and ‘crack’ digital products and software, testing the limits of the security and advocating for the dissemination of information and technology.

The landscape of PLAZA is interwoven with user generated models sourced from the web. The audio uses a collage of game samples, distorted youtube clips and sounds gathered from all corners of the internet; the graphics allude to different teams from around the world working together to mod[ify] a corporate platform. PLAZA is a discarded frontier town, unstable, incomplete and populated by fragmented memories...

Headphones are strongly recommended.