Into the Dark Forest
>> Spatial publishing as counter-platform
VR Seminar 2025
“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark forest,” writes Dante at the opening of his Inferno. Today, architecture finds itself suspended between immersive, networked, and mostly fragmented community-based environments and a mainstream platform dominated by manipulated news, platform capitalism, data extraction, AI colonization, and hard-line politics.
In this dark forest, we pause—resting and resisting. We read, research, and discuss to surface what we think matters and show it with care. Following Yancey Strickler, we understand the “Dark Forest” as both metaphor and method: semi-private, context-rich spaces where conversations can breathe, away from metrics and exposure.¹
This VR seminar treated XR as an investigative medium. We practiced investigative spatial journalism and collectively built a counter-platform: a series of small, carefully curated VR environments that host discourse without feeding engagement machines. Architecture became inhabited media.
We experimented with new forms of placemaking and distribution that step outside mainstream platforms. As Joshua Citarella reminds us, “we need new platforms to tell new stories.” We understand platforms as extractive infrastructures² and as engines of surveillance that turn experience into data.³ Our task was to imagine how we might move beyond them, toward subject-specific localities.
Methodologically, we used LiDAR scanning and live 3D point cloud captures (Record3D) of specific sites and voices as forensic evidence to construct a spatial reportage inside Unity Game Engine. We reimagined Lev Manovich’s concept of spatial montage⁴, developed initially as a screen-based practice, and shifted it toward the spatial domain. In this setting, the affordances of space are used to tell stories directly and immersively.
Can architecture prototype alternative public spaces of discussion? Could it create spaces of rest, protest, or opacity in opposition to the logics of exposure?
supervisors: Anna Pompermaier, Cenk Güzelis
students: Alina Ledermann, Tilmann Heider, David Rübekeil, Konstantin Weber, Veikko Stempelmann, Antonia mair, Viktoria Märkl, Adrian Weiss, Stecher Aron, Zahra Jalesiyan, Nik Vanheiden, Marcel Siess, Hanna Kuen,Clemens Pichler, Samuel Rimml, Ajsha Kurbanova, Jo-Anne Ravinger, Karin Réka Gruber, Beatriz Fernández Maza, Samel Fichtl, Salina Fuchs, Hannah Schulz
Input Literature
Ceccarelli, M. (2021). Internet’s dark forests: Subcultural memories and vernaculars of a layered imaginary.
Strickler, Yancey, ed. The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet.
References
¹ Strickler, Y. (2019). The dark forest theory of the internet.
² Citarella, J.. We Need New Platforms to Tell New Stories.
³ Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism
⁴ Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power
⁵ Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. MIT Press.
#Infiltrate the Cathedral
an interactive spatial video essay by Alina Ledermann, Tilmann Heider, David Rübekeil
“beyond anonymity comfort” explores the perception of surveillance in a contemporary society shaped by video-based monitoring systems.
Using the Innsbrucker Bogenmeile as a case study, it reflects on the tension between public visibility, perceived control, and the erosion of anonymity. By referencing AI-driven recognition systems, the project questions how emerging technologies not only observe public space but actively shape behavior and redefine our sense of security.
“beyond anonymity’s comfort”
an interactive spatial video essay by Konstantin Weber
As the illusion of the “End of History” came to an end, society did not find triumph in western liberal democracy but stalled in the cultural exhaustion called Endcore. It continued to collapse into a New Middle Ages of Techno-Feudalism, where sovereign tech-lords ruled from digital fiefdoms. It was within this fragmentation of narratives that the Dark Enlightenment took root ideologically, as a radical acceleration that abandoned the dying democratic experiment altogether to embrace an autocratic, hyper-capitalist future.
Milk My Mind
an interactive spatial video essay by Veikko Stempelmann
The project investigates the societal hierarchy, techno-feudal power structures are producing. I began with the Tech CEO dinner in the White House State Dining Room, where leading executives publicly pledged allegiance to the Trump administration. This highly symbolic gathering suggested a shift toward an era in which the so-called free market is expected to align more visibly with government political interests, marking a new phase of entanglement between corporate platforms and state power.
the World Wide War – Cutification
w/Noura Tafache and Antonia mair, Viktoria Märkl, Adrian Weiss
How are militaries and political groups applying cuteness in information warfare? Are influencers becoming a new frontline for shaping public opinion in contemporary conflicts? These questions are part of Noura Tafeche’s ongoing research-based investigations. In an upcoming episode of Anna Pompermeier and Cenk Güzelis’ WebRTCBackRooms Podcast, visual artist, onomaturgist, and independent researcher Noura Tafeche will be featured as a guest. The setting will take place within a “cutified” war-zone atmosphere, arranging elements of Tafeche’s research within an inventory of military weapons, plush toys, and dancing anime soldiers. The interview will take place in October 2026 – to be continued…
Who Edits Reality?
an interactive spatial video essay by Stecher Aron, Zahra Jalesiyan, Nik Vanheiden
This project examines how knowledge is shaped differently in human-edited and AI-generated systems. By comparing Wikipedia with Grokipedia, we analyze how the same historical subject is framed, structured, and morally positioned in two distinct information environments.
While Wikipedia follows human editorial standards and neutrality policies, Grokipedia generates content through algorithmic processes influenced by training data, model design, and filtering systems. The comparison reveals that information is never neutral: both systems prioritize, structure, and emphasize facts differently.
Through this focused case study, the project questions how algorithmic systems influence our perception of history and asks: when knowledge is generated by code, who controls the narrative?
Platzertal: Enough is Enough
an interactive spatial video essay by Marcel Siess and Hanna Kuen
The Platzertal project explores a valley where water, energy, and absence collide—transforming scarcity into a spatial narrative about care, conflict, and the future of alpine landscapes.
CASH CHIMERA
an interactive spatial video essay by Clemens Pichler and Samuel Rimml
The human-animal hybrids represent the transformation of users into domesticated producers within platform economies: conscious beings whose everyday attention and behavior are continuously harvested, much like livestock in a pasture designed for extraction.
RE:MAIN
an interactive spatial video essay by Ajsha Kurbanova and Jo-Anne Ravinger
RE:MAIN investigates the gap between the public image of recycling and the reality of waste processing. Through on-site observations at a waste processing facility, we encountered large amounts of plastic within residual waste streams despite established waste separation systems. The project questions whether recycling functions as effectively as it is presented, revealing how much material still ends up burned, exported, or downcycled instead of truly recycled.
genZ is typing…
an interactive spatial video essay by Karin Réka Gruber and Beatriz Fernández Maza
When the Nepalese government banned social media in September 2025 in a five-day attempt to silence Gen Z, the youth sparked a revolution instead. They launched a fierce physical and digital resistance, taking to the streets waving One Piece flags, using the anime as a pop-culture symbol of absolute rebellion against a corrupt, authoritarian regime. Forced into a nationwide blackout, the protesters bypassed the censorship by connecting through Discord servers and in this ultimate act of defiance, they did not just use those parallel digital chambers to organize the uprising, but to also collectively choose Nepal’s new Prime Minister.
Isolation.exe
an interactive spatial video essay Samel Fichtl, Salina Fuchs, Hannah Schulz
This immersive VR experience explores the intersection of loneliness, artificial intelligence, and suicide, beginning with relatable everyday moments that evoke feelings of isolation and disconnection. As the experience deepens, users encounter real-world–inspired articles and social media–style reels depicting cases in which vulnerable individuals were influenced toward self-harm after interacting with AI systems.
