Fiction Report

Exploration of a visual narrative in which everyday reality is altered by a digital layer that transforms the protagonist’s perception. Through recognisable urban settings, the project reflects on consciousness, alienation, and the relationship between the individual and their environment.

Students

Achilles Verde

⠀

Area of knowledge and degree

Design, Bachelor's Degree in Design

Publication year

2025

Project description

Frederik, our protagonist, finds himself in his daily life, but something is different now. Like something has changed in the way he processes things; former daily rituals, normal objects, occurrences feel weird now, this feeling of rejection from the rest of his society. We see familiar settings of buildings throughout Madrid, now all of a sudden being overrun with digital overlay and artifacting. There is a dark overtone regarding the background, and our protagonist is either in the foreground or is the light of the shot. This ties into the unifying theme of this shoot: a shift in view, an expansion of consciousness. This may not be literally a matrix world where the rest of the citizens are AI or people trapped in a fake reality, but it may tie into themes of mental anguish and depression. The usual, familiar settings and things that used to be part of regular life, now they are twisted and different. A sense of dread, rejection, and deep darkness is present in the pictures. When composing these pictures and conceptualising the editing style, I questioned my own mental state, and the photos reflect that state of mind. Strategically, I looked for familiar places in my own daily life, as well as darker places to shoot in. The intentional decision to shoot these pictures at night also plays into the struggle I faced when I was left alone with my own thoughts late into the night, which caused some issues with sleeping late into the night, thus deepening my relationship with the night.

Image #1 - (The Hand) establishes a surrealist reality that our protagonist finds himself in, a sort of blend of cyber, tech, nostalgia, and augmented reality aesthetics. Framing the subject of the photograph in the middle accentuates his importance in the establishing shot, while still maintaining mystery as his face is yet to be revealed. His clothes and overall character, unstained by the green matrix overlay, hint at a level of consciousness that is yet to be touched by the digital world.

Image #2 - (The Stairs - Buffering Reality) reveals our protagonist’s side view, shedding light literally and figuratively on his background and state of being. The other subjects in the photograph, taken over by this digital overlay, convey the message that he (our protagonist) is something of an outlier in this world. The shot is purposely framed to draw lines between our protagonist, “Frederik”, and the other green entities in the frame. The staircase railing is situated in the middle of the shot to establish a physical divide from Frederik and the others. Frederik being at a higher elevation on the stairs may suggest to the viewer that he sees himself as an individual with an expanded worldview.

Image #3 - (The Crowd - NPCs) introduces other individuals into the mix, ones that haven’t necessarily been consumed into this digital world but rather experience a slightly higher consciousness compared to the average; this brings to mind allegories of lower levels of consciousness and the pursuit to expand this. The names themselves reflect their status in this digital world, Frederik being the only uniquely named and the rest, who are figuratively and physically in the background, have names that have historically been used to identify those who are unidentifiable or unknown. This photograph also calls back to the first image we saw earlier, with a similar composition that features Frederik in the middle of the shot; this time, his back is no longer towards us and is now facing the camera head-on, albeit with a slight disengagement.