NUBEISM: THE FIRST DATA RELIGION

AA School of Architecture 2017 :

Intermediate Unit 14

Tutors:

Joseph Grima and Pernilla Ohrstedt

Award:

AA Foundation Brian Henderson Prize for Hand-Drawn architectural image

Tradition is the identity of a nation. While the society may differ culturally the ritual of memorialisation is present in every community. Monuments are created to commemorate people and events, to celebrate history - physical symbols which communicate past to the present. We get attached to the physical world as we contribute to it. While our tombstones may only read our names and dates it is the information produced in a lifetime what defines us as individuals. In the year of 2029 every citizen will have a copy of oneself embedded into an IPhone expressed through 1s and 0s. Social media platforms will be the new nations and our virtual accounts - our passports. In the digital era the reality will become secondary. The preposition for my project is the first data religion of Nubeism which questions the importance of the physicality in the soon to be completely virtual word and re-develops the ritual of memorialisation as an act of resistance towards the "cloud" immortality.