Los Angeles Solar: Speculating climate positive futures to move forward in the Anthropocene

LASolar is an interactive and narrative driven map of Los Angeles, set in a solarpunk future of 2095. Users can explore iconic locations of the city and discover how they have evolved to fit a more circular society, then discover more about all the ‘travelers’ of the website by the final conclusion.

Project Video

Abstract

Los Angeles Solar is a speculative solarpunk future project that imagines LA as a climate-positive city. In the Anthropocene, we are inundated with apocalyptic narratives about the future – forecasts of disaster, collapse, loss, and doomsday. These messages are urgent, and important. However, they lead to collective paralysis and dread, especially harmful and impactful to younger generations that will inherit consequences of environmental neglect. The story of LASolar begins from the belief that our problem is not awareness of the climate crisis, but rather the lack of imagination of futures that have addressed this problem; the future that stretches beyond it. This is then one possible vision, among countless others, of what would happen if we could simply build the world we want to live in, a society that has restructured itself around mutualism with nature.

Through an interactive, narrative driven website centered around a map of Los Angeles, users explore iconic locations transformed by sustainable energies, green technologies, regenerative urban design, and respect of ecological balance. The story unfolds through short textual segments across the map and each individual location. The map itself uses a particle system with topographic data of the city that follow an offset tracked to mouse position, making the interactions subtle, natural, and responsive. Clicking and expanding into each location reveals an AI generated image that followed a detailed generation and post production process, including using real photos of the city as reference, to produce results most accurate to the story. Each image has a corresponding custom painted depth map that, paired with Three.JS, produces a perspective distortion effect mapped to mouse position. Real photos from each corresponding location are also embedded within each, so a comparison is available. Everything combined with environmental sound design contributes to a more holistic environment for the viewer. The experience culminates in a single global yes/no poll, asking whether or not that individual believes that this future can exist, or not. In this way, Los Angeles Solar is an evolving conversation, and changes with the growing minds of its own users.

In the end, there is no correct answer, no singular takeaway; what is most important, especially to the climate crisis in general, is the dialogue that follows, and continued openness to solutions. However, this project has taken its stance: engaging in this conversation with a vision of the future rooted in beauty and grounded optimism is a powerful tool to address the vast problems at hand, together.

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