Principality of Us
Deja Holden
This project is an exploration of community building within temporal propinquity. The project, that is a mobile-based application, places users within a digital space, in which they are representing themselves. The user has no nationalistic ties and is represented in the form of a hexagon; these hexagonal users are then placed within a flag whose form is never consistent as it grows and contracts with the inflow of users to and from the network. It questions how people gain access to full citizenship within a state, what it means to be recognized as a citizen, and what skills or knowledge do you need, what type of people do you need to align yourself by in order to gain this recognition. By placing the user within this temporal space, they are able to formulate what it means to be a citizen within a space that does not ask anything of them but to be themselves. Individuals within the virtual space, start in one area, and from there, they have the option to be isolated, or to position themselves near others with whom they may want to form communities. To move and formulate new relationships they must negotiate something with individuals around them. These negotiations, formed by the subtleties of communication, are what strengthens communal bonds and ultimately form the basis of nations. It is not my intention to engage in formal state building, but to explore what it means to gain, create or lose something in the process of engaging with others, if only temporarily.