"W. Yang. 2004. Pictopia. In Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM international conference on Multimedia (MULTIMEDIA '04). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1001-1002. DOI=10.1145/1027527.1027770 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1027527.1027770" The urban population in the developed world is living with unprecedented tolerance for diversity; material wealth has afforded us the time and space for our differences to co-exist. The ever proliferating cyberspace has added additional room to contain people, ideas and activities that are not necessarily compatible. Yet, is our city really multicultural? Cyberspace, instead of being on the fringe of physical reality, could become an infrastructure that enhances the intrinsic order in our city, resulting in a complex network of opportunities for our differences to interact and co-develop. Pictopia is a system in which our activities in the cyberspace can begin to overlap and intertwine with our everyday life in urban spaces. It prophesizes a new reality - a mixed reality that is rooted in the physical environment, harmoniously complimented and extended by virtual activities and resources. It uses the invisible geometrical orders beneath the city grids as a foundation and a conduit, to connect our memories and ideas to the physical world. Not only is it a functional file operating system, it also encourages its participants to question, learn, and visualize the relevance of their actions in cyberspace.

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