The Atlas of False Desires

This short film was created with Unknown Fields Division at the Architectural Association in 2016, following a research expedition to the fast-fashion landscapes of India and Bangladesh.

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The Atlas of False Desires tells the story of Desire Atlas - a ‘click-farm’ in India who are running a devious operation to manufacture trends through the strategic placement of fake content and viral followings in social media. An operation that begins as a small IT venture soon goes on to involve some of fashion’s largest players in a secret battle to command consumer likes, shares and views.

Thee film emerged from our studies of the infrastructure - both physical and digital - that unpins contemporary fast fashion production. In fashion today,  forecasting the next big trend is everything and in the wild territory of the internet, companies harvest social networks for valuable patterns to predict and manipulate buying preferences. As trends spread like viruses through dataspace, they provoke planetary shifts in production infrastructures, meaning that the manipulation of trends is therefore a potentially world-changing tool. The Atlas of False desires presents our speculations on how corporate profit motives and conspicuous consumerism, the powerful forces driving trends, could be harnessed for an unexpected result - improving the health of waterways in India.