Webupon

The Pseudocity Project is an attempt to produce an alternative internet where a determinant is locality. The Pseudo City and the Pseudocity was the title of a master thesis.

It started with project founder Leif Ahnland’s diploma project and master thesis at the School of Architecture at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The team is currently based in Norwich, UK.

Leif says:
“Like stepping out the door and onto your street, your first filter will be your city represented by means of abstractions organised in a generic superstructure, applicable to all cities. From there, like in the physical world, you can go anywhere. But instant, relevant context will give the user a point of departure and reference.”

Ashley, the main developer on the Pseudocity project also had this to say:

“I think that it is important that we create an environment where social networking can be fun, educational and intuitive. There are already some noted websites that offer a social network but in some ways all these websites lack something, some are to confusing. Some sites such as Facebook bombard you with requests, We want something that works in harmony with the user and lets them control things better.”

The Intention is that this option will reflect back on local communities and the use of online tools to stimulate them will become more intuitive. And useful. There is nothing new with this. What could be new is the way these tools are integrated and whether the structure will actually function. Which remains to be seen. The Pseudo City is pretty clear, a ‘fake’ city as in a virtual presence online of an actual, physical place. What will remain almost unchanged are our interactions. The Pseudocity is a neologism, a word invented to describe the process where the online and the offline world are becoming more or less one and the pseudocity.org project is all about trying to make that merging as meaningful as possible.

The developers at Pseudo City have given sent some links to the initial research and demo for how Pseudo City will work:

thevirtualarchitect.blogspot.com and pseudocity.org

To view The Pseudocity Gazette for updates on development go to: http://pseudocity.elgunvo.com/