Hyper Reality: The World of Keiichi Matsuda

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting the master mind heading the creation of ‘Hyper-Reality’, Keiichi Matsuda, at the Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge. Keiichi was born as an architect but now I prefer calling him an artist, if not a visionary.

After his successful augmented reality short films for Vueve Clicquot and Bulgari, which have intrigued lots of influential people within the luxury, media and tech industries, ‘Hyper-Reality’ is a completely new project that Keiichi has been working on for months, showcased for the first time yesterday. This short movie is a representation from Keiichi’s perspective of the future world, or not? He really didn’t want to specify.

In recent years, there has been a very big hype surrounding virtual and augmented reality, and apparently this technology is going to replace the way that we currently use our smartphones, tablets and PCs. Working in the media environment, I can say that VR seems to be ‘the next big thing’, most believe that it’s going to be the future of content creation and messaging.

So, is this the way that Silicon Valley wishes us to be in 10 years’ time and how they wish the future to evolve?

Are we going to transform into alienated human beings, only speaking to machines and technology, instead of speaking and interacting between each other? Is technology actually going to improve our lives going forward, or will it actually destroy our soul? The only thing that actually distinguishes us from machines.

Whilst watching this video, I actually got quite terrified and anxious, because working in the media environment I realized that the kind of lifestyle depicted in ‘Hyper-Reality’, is much more feasible that it might seem. There are so many tech companies that are investing billions of dollars in VR and AR, from Google to Samsung and Facebook, so this is something that is actually happening and is no longer science-fiction.

This could actually be our future, so do we actually want to be like this? Is this what we want? Do we actually want technology to dehumanize us and make us become anti social beings, just wandering around searching for promotions, best prices and viewing our life as a game? Where you gain or loss points for everything you do? Always trying to reach a score, that at the end of the day does not make us win anything, if not loneliness? On the other hand, if you could reset your life, who would you be?

Do let me know your opinions on this sick short-film!