This is a video of our future, and it's scary as hell

Of course, the "future" in the title refers to a possible future; we don't have a magical crystal ball yet. But even though we can't know what the future holds, if the current trends are any indication, Keiichi Matsuda's video might be a very good showcase of what lies ahead, and it's not pleasant. 

Titled Hyper-Reality, the six-minute video (unearthed by The Verge) plunges the viewer into a world where virtual reality covers nearly all facets of actual reality. Instead of being useful, however, it's a nightmare of ads, messages and popups of all kind. 

Unnerving from the get go, the video gets even scarier as the protagonist Juliana, whose life we get to experience in first person view, suffers some sort of hacking attack, threatening to steal her identity. The virtual world around her starts melting down, rendering her unable to perform basic tasks such as shopping in a (physical) supermarket.

The video's production costs were successfully Kickstarted back in 2013. Then, Matsuda promised a "series of short films, exploring a future city saturated with technology and media."

Matsuda, a London-based designer and film-maker, also has several older videos that dwell on the ugly aspects of augmented reality. Amazingly, this one, posted six years ago, is just as prophetic (and technically accomplished) as the new one. 

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.