Rilao is a small but very densely populated and highly urbanized island. This micronation’s population of 8 million and its isolation from the rest of the world puts a strain on available space, infrastructure and resources.
As the Rilaoans’ access to the outside world is limited, they seek refuge in their fantasies and turn their anxieties into narrative-like structures. informed by Hollywood render farms, and the tradition of giving eternal life to actors within the digital realm. They create make-believes and avatars that exist in a space between physical reality and the digital hyperreal.
Receiving a strange satisfaction from becoming an untroubled machine – an existence devoid of accountability and transcendent of time, space and stable identity – they become sublime, creating brighter horizons and pushing beyond the limits locking us into this one finite life.
