AEON. An Interactive Experience on Virtual Immortality and the Potencial Consequences of Data Surveillance

Abstract

This project consists of an interactive experience, concentrated in a website, that serves the purpose of provoking a critical reflection on the subjects of Virtual Immortality, Data Surveillance and the amount of personal information that we disclose online, specially to big companies such as Google and Facebook. The critical reflection and ethical debate that the project aimed to raise were made possible through the formulation of a futuristic scenario, that is fictional yet quite realistic, considering the advances on technology that might soon allow Virtual Immortality to be a reality. This futuristic scenario is provided by Aeon, the center figure of the project and main object of its development. Aeon is the name of a (fictional) company that sells Virtual Immortality through the creation of a personal Avatar that is generated based on the digital footprint of the interested person. This Avatar is activated upon the death of the person in question and that Avatar proceeds to exist on the “Virtual Space” also managed and made available by the company. This process is simulated in the interactive experience, to exemplify how one company can extract all the data that exists concerning the user as soon as the user accepts certain terms & conditions and privacy policies. While the main goal is to try to make the users question themselves about the quantity and quality of information that they disclose online, there are also questions that can be formulated in this experience about consciousness and moral values related to Virtual Immortality. Nevertheless, these questions and critical reflection is mostly dependent on the users and their own opinion on the matter.