‘Vertopia’: The Future of Dark Tourism Places

Abstract

Stone adopts Foucauldian perspectives to examine surreal future emplacements within virtual realms. He argues these will not only be physical places or (re)imagined spaces but will blend with technologies hitherto undeveloped that liminal seams of the real world and virtual world will become indistinguishable. Stone entitles these new future spaces - vertopia - where technology fuses the entire fabric of our lived reality with virtual reality, distinct only by the multiple stories that can be played out. The chapter contextualises the vertopia in a creative scenario of future dark tourism and penal heritage hyperreality. Consequently, we will engage our digital dead through augmented performances, lived and virtual experiences, as well as a deifying Artificial Intelligence.