Drone City

An abstract meditation using Bitsy by Adam Le Doux. This codework depicts life as an automated flying delivery drone in a gated traffic environment, with the city parsed as a tightly constrained, algorithmic space. Physical buildings, and the city environment more generally, all but disappear within this wholly synthetic map, which constitutes the only reality seen and acted on by the drones.

Unsure where to go? Follow the arrows and the flashing boxes!

It should be noted that this piece is not a game(!) and a key point of the experience is encountering the near-total restrictions on the drone's movements. If you complete the delivery itinerary then you can access the airspace permissions necessary to freely orbit the network. A typical playthrough may last a few minutes.

The look of this piece was drawn from an illustration by Superflux, "Cartographies of the Sky", for their Drone Aviary (2015) project and film.

Plays with sound.