During the community quarantine implemented by the government, most activities of society had to shift to the digital realm. There has been a surge of digital content especially in social media – from memes, to intelligent discussions, rants, fake news, viral videos, etc.

I came up with this idea of a sense of hope amidst despair, somehow like a false oasis you see in a desert. A mirage is an illusion created by the refraction of light on a denser air within the environment. This phenomenon is usually seen in open horizons like open highways, plains, deserts and the open sea. As one would suppose, this optical phenomenon is transient, it only appears under certain conditions of the environment.

I produced Mirage as a way to make sense of this transition to a digital reality. Making up some sort of reality for oneself maybe is a way to cope with everything that’s happening. The floating figure is actually a patch of ocean generated and simulated by the program. I changed its texture to a mirror-like finish to reflect the space surrounding it, adapting to a reality it is situated in.

The Mirage is then placed inside my rendering of MO_Space, carefully following the measurements of the architecture and making it look as close as the real space with the help of photographic references. Though following the correct scale of the space, I omitted some details as I wanted to evoke a sense of hoax to the space I created.