This picture may appear to be a collection of color fields without meaning or purpose, but there is a ton of math and evil genius behind this image.

This is a view of Magnasanti, the metropolis that pushes SimCity to its population limits.

Here is a closer view:

Vincent Oscala, a 22-year old architecture student from the Philippines, spent years decoding the formula for success in Sim City 3000.

Sounds like lunacy…but his insane investment of effort into “beating” SimCity raises interesting questions about the urban landscapes we inhabit, and the ways in which they can go horribly wrong.

After a massive amount of planning and a great deal of trial and error, he was able to create a city with over six million inhabitants.

Moreover, the city he created was remarkably stable, with no abandoned buildings and no wasted space. There are no roads — all transit is mass transit. An omniscient police force has eliminated all crime in the city. Magnasanti’s water and power needs are supplied by neighboring cities, eliminating the need for much of the related infrastructure.

In SimCity terms, it is a masterpiece.

But at the “street level,” so to speak, it looks like a horrifying dystopia.

Unemployment is high, air pollution is stifling, education is largely absent, medical care and fire response are non-existent. Citizens do not live to reach retirement age. The police state has essentially eliminated free will and allowed the city to maximize its size while reducing quality of life to a minimum — and still maintaining total control over the citizens.

Every person living in Magnasanti spends his life working and residing in one small, massively efficient block of space, until death around age 50.

Here is a video that explains some of the development process for Magnasanti, including two smaller cities that served as development prototypes for Oscala’s final achievement:

As the soundtrack indicates, Oscala was highly influenced by the art film Koyaanisquatsi, or “Life out of Balance,” directed by Godfrey Reggio with music by Philip Glass.

Koyaanisquatsi is a non-narrative work that examines and explores the contrasts between the form and pace of nature and modern human life. Ultimately, the film confronts us with the fact that our species is living a life out of balance with nature, for better or for worse.