Diana Kozachek is a researcher and technologist based in Beijing and Switzerland.The Jialing Riverbed is crowded after the flood, the water is richer in flotsam than in fish. Locals and tourists gather here almost daily to watch the synchronized LEDs switch on after sunset, either with their hands stemmed on the lower back, or with a phone in front of them. No one seems to get tired of this daily spectacle. Somewhat before 7 p.m., the lights wander from the Dongshuimen Bridge (东水门长江大桥) to the Hongya Cave (洪崖洞), which reminds everyone on the internet of Spirited Away, then down the Raffles City towers, one of China’s most expensive buildings.Chongqing has many nicknames, cyberpunk city, city of fog, future city, 8D city, and, as described by Guardian environment editor Jonathan Watts 18 years ago, the invisible city.Watts spent 24h in the fastest growing urban center in the world. Back then, his claim of a “city that no one knows” might have held some truth. Today, with rapid urban and economic developments, amplified by mass- and social media, Chongqing’s domestic tourism has surged, drawing up to 22 million tourists in a single day – equivalent to the entire population of Beijing. The fascination accelerates through utopian tropes from limitless high-tech developments, making it Chongqing a flagship model of Chinese prosperity. Holding seventeen world records across all infrastructural layers, underwater tunnels, highways and 14.000 bridges aim to assemble a city surrounded by mountains, separated by two rivers and covered by a constant deck of clouds. While the environment may sound almost hostile, Chongqing is China’s most populated city, and the largest city proper in the world. Combined with an average of two million daily uploads tagged under the location on Xiaohongshu(小红书) and Douyin(抖音), the digital and physical presence of Chongqing has manifested its newest nickname: the viral city.A woman is dancing in front of a human-sized, vertical screen, two tripods