Vicarious Domestic States. The Post-Domestic Turn of Digital Twinning Habitual Settings

The desire to live vicariously, mirroring behavioural conditions external to one’s own home, gives each home multiple lives in a hyper-functional world. Technology’s fusion with the home produces two outcomes. First, the ability to capture comprehensive, three-dimensional records of a home’s physical conditions and traces using light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, connects functional layout more concretely to behavioural scripts. Second, virtual mirroring converts transferable information about the home from generalities to hyper-specific singularities. A home’s digital twin can contribute to archives of domestic conditions disseminated as assets for access, download, and manipulation in other media. Behavioural simulation and gaming can simulate exact domestic conditions from throughout the world, rather than interpreted approximations. This paper draws on projects developing digital twins of homes in several locations in Hong Kong. Researchers are using 3D scanning technology to record homes in public housing flats and in the stilt house architecture of Tai O Village. The paper discusses technology and workflows employed, theorizing the technological and social impacts of domestic digital twins in data archives. The paper uses graphic precedents to demonstrate archiving protocols and speculate on influences the post-digital turn will have on domestic environments and behaviour.