
“Hyperbolic Vision Vol. 1” By Rubin Quarcoopome
This piece was exhibited at the Bellevue Arts Museum, as part of the 2021 Architectural Biennial.
“Hyperbolic Vision Vol. 1” reimagines the arduous fight for spatial justice through vibrant virtual visions of a just world. This piece envisions the future built environment as just a starting point, the blank canvas for creative exploration in digital space. The built world becomes merely the rehearsal of spacemaking, while the digital space is the performance.
These nine panels tell a story of transition and imagination. The first three introduce the physical world, the next set describes the transition to the virtual, and the last shows the virtual itself, and its reimagining of reality to fit the user’s imagination.
The main character is a person of color in a lonely city. She starts the day in a functional space, sunlight peeking in shyly. The light kisses empty walls and a simple bed. The day is special: a legendary creation AI has arrived in the city, and she has permission to create with it. She bounds out of the building and through the streets. She no longer registers the urban decay: the cracked concrete, the faded paints, and failed beautification attempts. Soon she enters the Hyperbolic Vision facility. Trembling with excitement, she finds an empty glowing pod, and plugs herself in.
Digitizing into this virtual world, the city is reborn. The concrete breathes and overflows with nature, never betraying the lines of code. The paint is alive, emblazoned with Adinkra symbols pulsing and morphing playfully. This is her city, and it is personalized. She glides to the creation space, surrounded by organic architectural designs. Visitors seat themselves wherever they like: on ceremonial stools, in windows, along curving walls. Her pod pulses and hums in harmony with countless others. She has created the beautiful city she wishes to live in: a hyperbolic vision of a just world, unburdened by the physical.
“Hyperbolic Vision Vol. 1” reimagines the arduous fight for spatial justice through vibrant virtual visions of a just world. This piece envisions the future built environment as just a starting point, the blank canvas for creative exploration in digital space. The built world becomes merely the rehearsal of spacemaking, while the digital space is the performance.
These nine panels tell a story of transition and imagination. The first three introduce the physical world, the next set describes the transition to the virtual, and the last shows the virtual itself, and its reimagining of reality to fit the user’s imagination.
The main character is a person of color in a lonely city. She starts the day in a functional space, sunlight peeking in shyly. The light kisses empty walls and a simple bed. The day is special: a legendary creation AI has arrived in the city, and she has permission to create with it. She bounds out of the building and through the streets. She no longer registers the urban decay: the cracked concrete, the faded paints, and failed beautification attempts. Soon she enters the Hyperbolic Vision facility. Trembling with excitement, she finds an empty glowing pod, and plugs herself in.
Digitizing into this virtual world, the city is reborn. The concrete breathes and overflows with nature, never betraying the lines of code. The paint is alive, emblazoned with Adinkra symbols pulsing and morphing playfully. This is her city, and it is personalized. She glides to the creation space, surrounded by organic architectural designs. Visitors seat themselves wherever they like: on ceremonial stools, in windows, along curving walls. Her pod pulses and hums in harmony with countless others. She has created the beautiful city she wishes to live in: a hyperbolic vision of a just world, unburdened by the physical.
About the Artist
Rubin Quarcoopome (he/him) is a Seattle-based designer who loves creating beautiful art, as well as exploring the stories that can be told with a visual medium. His pieces are rooted in Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism and seek to explore the impact of the built environment on the narratives of those who inhabit those spaces. In addition to creating digital paintings, Rubin explores his creativity further through photography, and passionately pursues social and spatial justice through his start-up business, Designing in Color. He envisions infinite futures every single he creates in the present.
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