Digital Heterotopia
2020 / Negev Desert, Israel
Masters Design Studio, KTH University Stockholm
Masters Design Studio, KTH University Stockholm
After having stayed for five days in a Kibbutz in the Negev desert amongst the Neot Semadar community, Raphael and I became intrigued by their ideals and strong sense of communal belonging, bounding them to this place in the middle of the desert.
We noticed a process of gradual change within the community. For someone who went there 30 years ago, the current place was said to be unrecognisable. Interestingly, the mental image living amongst the residents of what the place is has remained largely unchanged.
Building upon this notion of discrepancy between community and architecture we created the film ‘A Digital Heteropia for the People of Neot Semadar’, which builds upon Foucault’s idea of the Heterotopia: a place acting like a mirror for the current ‘state’ of a society. The intention of the film is to confront the residents of Neot Semadar with their bubbled state of being, all the while highlighting the differences in perception between them, their architecture, and the outside world.
In collaboration with Raphael Mertin.
Watch the full video ︎︎︎
