Virtual Reality has been around in some form or other since the 80's, and as an idea much earlier in science fiction novels. It only now seems like we are ready to welcome it into our homes. The tech is getting cheaper, we are very comfortable living with screens, and anyway something needs to be totally immersive to grab our attention. Which is the only value we have for most corporations, brands, religions, institution, etc., our collective ability to pay attention to them.

But with all the tech demos, the swimming with sharks-walking on lava, computer engines that will generate environment in real-time, there is an underlying anxiety. There is a fear that like anything mass produced in the previous century, it will be used for narcotic escapism, to forget who we are or where we are. Hyper-Reality is about that fear.

In the future, every piece of viewable space will be filled with screaming-bright advertising, where an app will decide what job you should take, where your identity is data on a remote server, and where your points matter very, very much. Augmented Reality devices have merged the city with the virtual reality, and physical space is filled with the kind of banner ads and pop-ups that would freeze your laptop with viruses. A dejected woman walks through a city, and her world is so controlled that a sudden act of violence can be genuinely startling. But there is a kind of salvation in the end, which is it's own narcotic.

Hyper-Reality is like a 5 minute long Black Mirror episode. It has some really smart CGI, and is dense with information, and rewards multiple viewing to pick up all it's details.