The Atlas of False Desires (2016)

In Fashion, forecasting the next big trend is everything. In the wild territory of the internet, companies harvest social networks for valuable patterns to predict and manipulate your buying preferences. As trends spread like viruses through dataspace, they provoke planetary shifts in production infrastructures; translating dreams into economies that reach from sweatshops to the windows on the high street. Like some sort of cosmic virus, a bulbous growth emerges on the horizon of a monotonous fractal landscape. A teen lies in her bedroom, tracking the web's latest trends. Fashion forecasting collapses as trend predictions spasm in a schizophrenic fit. And in India, they keep clicking. It is 2020 and Desire Atlas, a 'click-farm' in India is running a devious operation to manufacture trends through the strategic placement of fake content and viral followings in social media. An operation that begins as a small IT venture soon goes on to involve some of fashion's largest players in a secret battle to command consumer likes, shares and views. #undyed is its name, and it's bigger than Gangnam Style. A vlogger promotes the latest #undyed product. Reams of hand woven fabric pass from village, to celebrity wardrobes. And now, the world is clicking.