# data[].attributes.body
And it’s kind of sad, really, that this lawn has never been touched. No one has lain down on it, looking up at the sky. No one has had a picnic there and torn grass with their hands as they sit absentmindedly, or kicked a ball over and run to pick it up. Who would?
The satellites make a guess at the same time: a child.

# data[].attributes.body
17776 (What Football Will Look Like in the Future), Jon Bois, July 15, 2017. Hypertext, SBNation.

# data[].attributes.body
Like the satellites in 17776, we float above the vast world of HYPER//ECHO, tuning into the minute and mundane. Structures kept pristine despite their inevitable decline into rubble become of particular interest: we hone in on them, checking to see if more healing must be done.

# data[].attributes.body
The citizens of this future Earth have settled into routines, satisfying themselves with rhythm and repetition. They wouldn't step out on that lawn unless something propelled them to. But unfiltered by the workings of urban psychogeography, a child - which no longer exists on this Earth - would wander out onto that lawn for no reason. The Hyperart Thomasson and the act of wandering both garner a sense of the futile. At the same time, both the Thomasson and the act of dérive strive to weaponise a mundane act against the mundane.

# data[].attributes.body
It’s also a Hyperart Thomasson, an urban feature lost without its function.

# data[].attributes.body
Courtesy of the FIREPIT Collective

# data[].attributes.body
All of a sudden – maybe a pop up window will tell us a server has failed, or maybe a virtual heat-death will sweep over the screen – it’ll be gone.

# data[].attributes.body
But in its final moments, I hope we’re standing around that old lighthouse where decay first set in, healing up buildings in a last-ditch effort to save everything and leaving messages on the ground to say our last goodbyes. I hope we're together.

# data[].attributes.body
- Goodbye //traveller

# data[].attributes.body
I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen to HYPER//ECHO in its last days.

# data[].attributes.body
Part of the Thomasson's futility is that while it may be carefully maintained today, someone will realise it's just debris. And then it'll be gone.

# data[].attributes.body
So if Thomassons and dérive are about the nature of a city, how might we interpret the city, compelled by HYPER//ECHO? Perhaps HYPER//ECHO sees the futility of healing its many buildings as a practice in acceptance - the nature of a city is to change, just as the nature of the Internet is to be ephemeral. We're learning to let go of permanence, because it is permanence that keeps us from walking out onto that lawn. It is permanence that keeps us from asking questions and it is permanence that stops us from cherishing the here and now.

# data[].attributes.body
But one satellite is fascinated by a particular stretch of grass, a “forgotten lawn”. In 1999 the grass was planted, and in the 15,777 years after that, no one has set foot on it. The lawn has become set dressing, like a tablecloth or lampshade.

# data[].attributes.body
In Jon Bois’ work of interactive fiction, 17776 or What Football Will Look Like in the Future, death is over. At some point, human beings stopped ageing, stopped being sick and stopped having children. Satellites have become sentient in the thousands of years since, entertaining themselves by looking down at Earth and watching American football.

# data[].attributes.headline
Gallery 3: Influences - Dérive and Hyperart Thomasson

# data[].attributes.subject
Gallery 3: Influences - Dérive and Hyperart Thomasson

# data[].attributes.body
Dérive and Hyperart Thomasson both inspired some of the ideas for FIREPIT in creating HYPER//ECHO, and for good reason: both are reflections on the modern city.

A game of dérive aims to revolutionise the act of drifting through a city. The player may be aimless, but there's always a goal in mind: to succumb to intuition and the natural movements of a place without being lead astray by the machinations that alter it via capitalism.

Hyperart Thomassons — vestigial architectural elements that have lost their original purpose — were often found via games not unlike dérive: Akasegawa and his students set loose on the city, wandering randomly but with a goal: to seek out as many as Thomassons they could find.

# data[].attributes.body
Renewed, April 19
Messages are brought back from illegibility, like moss scrubbed away from a tombstone.

# data[].attributes.body
Frog Island: April 19 and June 24 (above and below)
Forgotten, Frog Island has turned to black dust and glows blue towards the heavens: a soul leaving a body.

# data[].attributes.body
Inside the museum display box, top to bottom:

Cursed 3D models, Marc Pagliuca, 3 April. Posted in HYPER//ECHO Discord chat.

Concept Art Leak, Marc Pagliuca, 3 April. Posted in HYPER//ECHO Discord chat.

On the wall:

Reveals so much, Cécile Richard, 3 April. Posted in HYPER//ECHO Discord chat.

# data[].attributes.headline
Gallery 2: April 6 Update or; the Great Decaying

# data[].attributes.subject
Gallery 2: April 6 Update or; the Great Decaying

# data[].attributes.body
post-launch grace period is over. time is no longer suspended and all buildings are now decaying... tick tock
- FIREPIT.ZONE, 06/04/2022, HYPER//ECHO Discord

Things begin to crumble. We built too much - now we struggle to keep up with this event of mass decay. Some are content with the change, and keep building around it. Others carefully maintain plots that they've come to feel responsible for. And others arrive to pass through, just for a moment, gleaning the wreckage for signs of life.

# data[].attributes.body
Lost Highway, April 5
We walked heel to toe, heel to toe, turning every now and then to beckon the one behind us to follow. Eventually we arrived here, and lit our path.

# data[].attributes.body
It Takes a Village: Frog Island, April 5
Together we walked into the void, challenging ourselves to go as far as we could. Fatigued, we settled here, finding a place to make our mark.

# data[].attributes.body
HYPER//ECHO didn't always look like this. Its buildings used to stand in greys and whites, solid and seemingly everlasting like granite and marble. People gathered here en masse. They followed each other from island to island like a line of worker ants, leaving behind more buildings, more messages as they went. We were optimistic, then.

# data[].attributes.body
Click to listen to the reverberations and hums of the HYPER//ECHO soundtrack as you wander these white walls.

# data[].attributes.body
HYPER//ECHO is coming to an end on the 1st of July. The traveller who has been wandering its spaces for these last three months - her digital body is becoming worn now, like these buildings - has built this 'museum' to honour it. Combing through her diary and the archives of her desktop computer, she makes full use of the democratisation of curation on the Internet in an attempt to preserve HYPER//ECHO's memory: before it's wiped from the internet forever.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you like HYPER//ECHO — SOUNDTRACK, you may also like:

The Land Dictates the Lay of the Stone
by O. G. Jigg

The U.D.O Super 6 polyphonic synthesizer sits at the center of a string ensemble in these disarmingly beautiful compositions. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 25, 2022

go to album

Common Ground vol.1
by Safe Ground Rec.

A compilation featuring exclusive tracks from ambient luminaries with all proceeds donated to Help Refugees/Choose Love and Sea-Watch NGOs. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 2, 2021

go to album

Shelter
by Albert Yeh

On his latest, San Francisco artist Albert Yeh offers nine beautiful tracks that bridge the gap between drone & ambient music. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 21, 2021

go to album

The Space Voyage
by Secrets of the third planet/S3P

Take a trip through the cosmos with these gorgeously expansive songs, that move from haunting ambiance to driving EBM. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 6, 2021

go to album

Chronos
by Secret of Elements

Sprawling and emotive, “Chronos” is a sweeping, soundtrack-like record big on heart and deeply moving melodies. Bandcamp New & Notable May 2, 2021

go to album

ddbb
by noda yûki

Electronic music with a crisp, calm charm and ambient spaciousness from Osaka producer noda yûki. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 30, 2020

go to album

A State Of Decrepitude
by Wanderwelle

The Amsterdam duo reflect on environmental anxieties across an ambitious electroacoustic effort showcasing their field-recording prowess. Bandcamp New & Notable May 6, 2020

go to album

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
HYPER//ECHO - SOUNDTRACK, by Firepit Collective

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
HYPER//ECHO - SOUNDTRACK by Firepit Collective, released 04 May 2022 1. Intro 2. Marc Pagliuca - Zoneling 3. Marc Pagliuca - Leaveland Dreams 4. Marc Pagliuca - Ghost Drifter 5. KrystalCoconut - Bad Connection (isyourguy remix) 6. Marc Pagliuca - Grassland Paradise 7. isyourguy - Shivering 8. Marc Pagliuca - Tomb Bells 9.