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From the urban factory to the metaverse: Understanding datafication, spatial computing and digital twinning practices

Emma Fraser,C. Wilmott,Will B. Payne

Published 2025 in New Media & Society

ABSTRACT

This article considers digital twins and digital twinning practices in relation to the spaces of the factory, city, and the “metaverse.” We draw on the work of urban and new media theorists to argue that digital twins are part of a long history of urban media and computation. Expanding on Walter Benjamin’s notion of phantasmagoria, we argue that the logics of the factory inherent in early digital twins are intensified and expanded in the more recent translation to urban digital twins and spatial media architectures. We identify three frames that articulate the relation of digital twins to cities, the factory, and media-driven phantasmagoria: the topological structuring of the city as a future site of commodification; the production logic that expands from the factory into the urban digital twin; and the phantasmagoric construction of the spaces of the metaverse, which hides complex relations through interactive media spectacles.

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