Flat Eye presents a possible future which may be neither desirable nor avoidable.

To create this world and make it credible, MONKEY MOON took inspiration from the present. There is no lack of sources: online articles, social media videos, scientific journals and more. On the team's private chat, one observation came up again and again: ""when reality goes beyond fiction."" Things that may seem a long way off or even impossible in the game may in fact have already happened, and some of the game's narrative threads were directly inspired by these true stories.
As archivist for the project, my mission, toward the end of the development process, was to gather all of these articles to create this coherent bibliography. It provides a closer look at what inspired Flat Eye, of course, but also at our present--a time of such rapid, constant change that we don't even realize it's happening anymore.
The goal of this snapshot of the world is to place Flat Eye's major themes (artificial intelligence, the future of work, social change, etc.) in their context. The bibliography sorts articles into several different categories (with frequent overlaps) and provides a summary for each. If you're only after the links and references, you'll find it all at the bottom of the page.

September 2022. The archivist.

This is Project Starline. Years in the making, it works like a magic window, bringing you together with friends, family, and coworkers, even when you're cities (or countries) apart.

Published on May 18 2021

Seen by Flat Eye team on May 18 2021

{Content in English}

Google is working on Project Starline, a "magic window" that makes videoconferencing more concrete and gives it more depth. Starline's hardware currently takes up a lot of space, however, and Google has yet to announce a public release date.

https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline/

[WOR-6] See reference details

AI created art by Dream

Published on October 13 2021

Seen by Flat Eye team on December 03 2021

{Content in English}

This website uses AI to randomly generate images.

https://app.wombo.art/

Note from the archivist: Since we began working on Flat Eye, the number of such generators has increased (Dall-E 2, Craiyon, Midjourney, etc.) as has the quality of the result.

[AI-15] See reference details

Synthesia

Published on September 01 2020

Seen by Flat Eye team on December 15 2021

{Content in English}

This start-up provides a platform for making corporate videos. Their number one asset: artificial intelligence that allows users to have avatars based on real actors say anything they like in any language.

https://www.synthesia.io/

Note from the archivist: Welcome to the era of commercialized deep fakes.

[SOL-18] See reference details

References