Synthetic Vision Fund

Summary

“Invest in Synthetic Visionaries.” Follow a procedure that looks real, and what made you believe it becomes visible.

38

invented founders

each with an interview and metrics

3 stages

the system decays as you use it

normal → images change → collapse

0

actions recorded

every stage is performative and reversible

An exhibited website — concept, branding, UI, frontend, generative graphics

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Overview

Synthetic Vision Fund is a fictional AI investment platform that mimics the language, interfaces and interaction flows of contemporary startup and venture capital culture. By simulating familiar actions — reading articles, clicking investment buttons, entering checkout flows, receiving confirmation screens — it creates the illusion of participating in a legitimate financial system. Rather than critiquing AI as a technology, it examines how interfaces, terminology and design conventions manufacture trust and belief.

Key decisions

1. 01Don't state the critique; rebuild the procedure

   Explaining turns the visitor into an observer. Going through the motions is what exposes their own belief.

   →Reading, choosing an amount, checking out and receiving a confirmation — the whole flow of a real service, with nothing missing.

2. 02Let it fall apart as it is used

   If it looks wrong from the start, nobody believes it; if it stays perfect, nothing happens.

   →Every completed checkout advances a stage. Stage 1 is normal, stage 2 changes the images, and in stage 3 closing a window spawns more, with “connection unstable. Do not refresh.”

3. 03Make them wait

   A real service makes you wait while it fetches data, and that wait reads as proof.

   →A deliberate 1.5-second skeleton load on every page.

4. 04Logo, loader and background from one piece of code

   Half of why a brand looks plausible is repetition.

   →One radial p5.js animation serves as the logo, the footer pattern and the loading mark.

5. 05Record nothing

   If a visitor's choices persist in the gallery, it stops being a performance.

   →No actions or outcomes are stored, and holding Shift+R for three seconds returns the piece to its first state.

Reflection

• The most convincing device wasn't spectacle; it was convention. A familiar order and familiar words did most of the persuading.
• Left open — because nothing is recorded, how far visitors went exists only as what was seen in the room.