aidan strong

Layers Upon Layers is a multiplayer sand simulation designed for 10-30 players. The game focuses on a pixelated world where abstract figures fall from the sky and crash into the ground. When they touchdown, they become enveloped by the world itself and merge with the landscape. Players interact with Layers Upon Layers through joining on their phones and clearing out sections of sand. Through the process of digging, players themselves contribute to the historical topology of the world.

The simulated landscape is projected at a massive scale for players to see: turning pixels into mountains.

Photos are from an installation in the lower pit of the Experimental Digital Arts space at University of California, Los Angeles.

The music was composed by Dzidzor Amorin

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An eroded item loses its singularity. It leaves a collection of loose fragments and particulates, with each piece only holding partial memories of its beginning.

What do we see in the collections of these particles? Disjointed fragments connected together, glued and molded to serve a new purpose. Buildings defined by the sum of things that have forgotten their own names. Nevertheless, these new buildings will eventually erode away themselves, creating fodder for the next ones.

This is how time progresses. Strata lines formed from memory, unfaltering spires built on the ruins of the last.