A nation at the forefront of technologically-driven innovation and automated governance

Barrierland is cooperatively owned and operated by its 650 human inhabitants.

Its combination of cutting-edge data science and artificial intelligence -known as BrAIn- affords its citizens a unique post-work lifestyle both centered on and driven by a leisure activity: Data Fishing

Along daily tidal cycles, Barrierlanders traverse the Tidelander environment in order to position and retrieve data fishing devices that employ various sensor and networking technologies. In addition, conoidal data monuments are constructed and serve as physical archives of life in Tideland.

Beyond its material manifestation in data farms or its visualization in infographics, data gathering today takes place in an ostensibly immaterial and invisible realm. We endeavored to take literally the notion of “data fishing,” reimagining it as constituting the primary leisure activity of a post-work society governed by artificial intelligence.We were also interested in exploring how data collection would be done in a non-capitalist society. In a capitalist society, data collection is used to optimize behavior, optimize sales. How would data collection be used in a society where optimization was not necessary?Barrierland is not a capitalist society, and so data is used in an alternative way as part of a feedback loop, as it feeds the governing AI system, which in turns creates new data fishing devices to be utilized by its citizens.

BARRIERLAND

Along daily tidal cycles, Barrierlanders traverse the Tidelander environment in order to position and retrieve data fishing devices that employ various sensor and networking technologies. In addition, conoidal data monuments are constructed and serve as physical archives of life in Tideland.