Predictive Cities by artist-filmmaker Manu Luksch

Manu Luksch’s ‘Predictive Cities’ depicts the infestation of networked urban infrastructure by algorithmic management systems. Ostensibly ‘smart’, these systems maximise returns for corporate-governmental clients with little accountability, while rendering the ordinary citizen transparent as glass. To explore the loss of autonomy in a hyper-networked and surveilled world, the artist has developed a new visual language based on point clouds – 3D representations constructed from millions of data points – and their manipulation through software as a metaphor for the data-driven manipulation of public urban space. The soundtrack was created by her long-time collaborator, mathematician-composer Mukul Patel.