Makoko 2035: An Encyclopedia

Virtual + Augmented Reality

"We have done so much for so long with so little that now we can do anything with nothing." So the adage goes. Such is the history of the people of Makoko, and such is their relationship to technology, including virtual and augmented reality. Makoko saw little of the second wave of VR in the 2010s or the first wave of AR that followed it. After the first hackers trained at the Floating School got their hands on some of the goggles and headsets that found their way into Lagos as discarded e-waste, however, a new and very different wave of VR and AR—one resonant with the needs and desires of Makoko's residents—could be seen to propagate out from the newly-built makerspaces and makeshift workshops.

Augmented Reality, in particular, gained popularity among Makoko's citizens due to its affordances for providing the user with data about the surrounding environment. The goggles and glasses, when combined with environmental sensors, allowed the early adopters of this bricolage technology to see for the first time, not only that the water was polluted, but also what, exactly, was in the water to make it so. This was highly useful for fisherman searching for clean areas of the Lagoon to fish, and to citizen engineers and folk-technologists who were empowered to develop specific techniques to clean Makoko's canals. AR enabled the Area Boys to more easily identify outsiders, potential Lagos police, and even signal one another when stealth was called for. The Floating School adapted these systems for educational purposes, and there are a number of games played among the inhabitants that use Makoko itself as one giant playing field. Quadcopter drones equipped with portable LIDAR rigs (also developed in Makoko's makerspaces) are employed to scan Makoko, and the resulting models are fed to the game system which is shared across all participants' headsets and lenses.

Virtual Reality is employed mainly for the purposes of entertainment (films, games, etc.) but has led to a surprising, if disturbing, trend in recent years. IDUNU, an interactive, idealized Makoko, which was originally developed to allow users to experience a version of the floating city that is free from poverty and crime, has proven to be much more compelling than anticipated. Many of its users have begun withdrawing from society, their jobs, and friends, choosing instead to remain within the virtual Makoko. Solutions to this near-epidemic are currently being considered.

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