Arcology was written as a submission for a monthly challenge that Eilish Gilligan ran on her twitch channel most of last year. The challenge for that particular month was to select an image and write a musical response to it. I chose to go with an instrumental track, but the image I selected was that of a distributed arcology campus.
Different cyberpunk authors and futurists have pictured arcologies in different ways. The idea they share is that an archology is an architecturally designed space that is self-contained and self-sufficient from the perspective of food and energy production, and provides a walkable space in which residents can work, study, shop and live in which requires minimal (if any) departure from that locale. One of the major critiques of this kind of design is that the size of the buildings proposed by many would be unsupportable from a structural perspective due to a lack of materials capable of supporting the kinds of stresses available. The picture I selected for this track took a different approach. It has several smaller/lower buildings inhabiting a green space.
The musical challenge I had was to try to create a set of sonic textures that would evoke the experience of living in such a space. I feel like I succeeded in that.
