About

Rilao Project and Museum

The Museum of Rilao is an online collection of works developed for the Rilao Project and platform to foster the design practice of world building.

The Rilao Project team in the beginning stages of concepting the island.

The Rilao Project team in the beginning stages of concepting the island.

Rilao and World Building

Rilao is a city spread across many islands, in an atoll that is part of a remote and hidden archipelago that for close to one hundred years has been kept in isolation. This trope allows us to imagine an alternative trajectory of social, political and technological development, built around a culture of DIY prototyping, smart materials used to terraform new living surfaces, expressive personal robotics and procedural architecture.

Early concept art depicting mountains in the outer archipelago.

Early concept art depicting mountains in the outer archipelago.

Rilao examines the possibilities and anxieties of an increasingly artificial environment by exploring the cultural innovations necessary to create a livable space in a fluid and mobile place.

The project is a series of media narratives that chronicles the culture, history, technology and landscape of Rilao. These pieces use platforms as different as the Oculus Rift, multiple channel video, Unity games, kinetic body-scale architecture, immersive sound installation, physical artifacts, photography and web-based graphic design and storytelling.

3D rendering the of the inner-island architecture of the city.

3D rendering the of the inner-island architecture of the city.

The Rilao Project also involves developing and mapping the city of Rilao around these projects, employing narrative design, video mock-ups and 3D modeling in Unity and Houdini to bring the city to life.

3D mock-up of a Muka Tree.

3D mock-up of a Muka Tree.

Produced by students in the Interactive Media and Game Design, Production, and Media Arts + Practice divisions of the , this persistent work extends across multiple semesters in parallel to practice-based research in the .

The Museum

This website is divided into four sections: Exhibits, Cyclopedia, Rilao Map, and RRVP Game.

The Exhibits section features the projects developed by university students.

The Cyclopedia is a database of terms generated through the RRVP game developed during the 2014 Science of Fiction event.

The Rilao map visualizes the districts, geographical, and political features of the island.

While the Rilao Remote Viewing Protocol is an analog game, the RRVP Game contains a virtual adaptation. The game was by participants during the Science of Fiction. During the event, projects were submitted to rrvp.rilao.net.