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.
The products of the future already exist in some R&D lab somewhere, in an academic article, or in a creative mind. And sometimes, they're already among us. They turn up when we're not looking, and suddenly we don't understand the world we live in anymore. It looks nothing like the world we thought we knew. Welcome.
#WWDC vs Black Mirror. We're living in strange times
Published on June 07 2021
Seen by Flat Eye team on June 07 2021
{Content in English}
This Tweet compares the June 2021 Apple conference that took place before a phony audience made up of memoji avatars because of Covid to the "Fifteen Million Merits" Black Mirror episode where the audience of the televised competition Hot Shot is also made up of avatars.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210607191621/https://twitter.com/danielsantalla/status/1401980558834552838[WT-10] See reference details
Un chirurgien de l'AP-HP a mis en vente sur Opensea, sous forme donc de NFT, la radio d'une personne blessée lors des attentats du Bataclan qu'il a opéré
Published on January 22 2022
Seen by Flat Eye team on January 22 2022
{Content in French}
A hand surgeon put an NFT of an X-ray of a patient wounded during the Bataclan terrorist attacks in Paris up for auction. He claims he's doing it to "interest people" and "teach them something". The victim did not authorize the transaction.
https://twitter.com/w_chloe/status/1484896561960259587Note from the archivist: The surgeon canceled the auction. Charges have been filed: his trial is scheduled to begin on September 21, 2022.
[WT-27] See reference details
References
#WWDC vs Black Mirror. We're living in strange times, Twitter June 07 2021, seen on June 07 2021 {Content in English}
https://web.archive.org/web/20210607191621/https://twitter.com/danielsantalla/status/1401980558834552838Un chirurgien de l'AP-HP a mis en vente sur Opensea, sous forme donc de NFT, la radio d'une personne blessée lors des attentats du Bataclan qu'il a opéré, Twitter January 22 2022, seen on January 22 2022 {Content in French}
https://twitter.com/w_chloe/status/1484896561960259587