Hallowed MindEra
A dystopian city in 2125 where emotional transparency has become infrastructure, privacy is treated as a threat and care has turned into control.
When care becomes data, who holds the power?
What happens when a system created for empathy becomes infrastructure for classification, surveillance and control?
The project explores how a technology created for empathy could be absorbed by institutions and used to classify, monitor and control people.
I extended the Open Mind system into a darker future through factions, propaganda, public interfaces, consent documents and resistance tools such as the NullPatch pack.
The result is an ethical counterpoint communicated through two films, physical and digital artefacts, a pictorial publication and an actionable futures toolkit.
Empathy becomes classification. Classification becomes control.
Four moves connect the problem, the design logic and the final direction.
Empathy becomes infrastructure
A system designed for understanding moves into public life.
Visibility becomes classification
Institutions begin sorting people through emotional data.
Classification becomes compliance
Surveillance is normalised through interfaces, policy and propaganda.
Compliance creates resistance
NullPatch and counter-tools give privacy a new underground language.
The system speaks. Resistance answers.
The moving pieces make the project easier to understand at a glance.
Hallowed Mind propaganda film
A public-facing film from inside the controlled society, presenting surveillance as safety and care.
NullPatch resistance film
A view into the tools, language and risks experienced by people resisting emotional surveillance.
A dystopia built as a warning, not decoration.
The result is an ethical counterpoint communicated through two films, physical and digital artefacts, a pictorial publication and an actionable futures toolkit.