Simulation vs.Representation

The first definition of simulation is an imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system. However this term is more complex than just this one definition. Simulation in fact can also be related to abstraction, simulacra, and feign.

The general definition of abstraction is the process of forming a concept by identifying common features among a group of individuals, or by ignoring unique aspects of these individuals. This concept is subjective since each individual perceives the world in a different way and has different impact that could affect its mindset.

Simulacra or simulacrum is the actual representation or imitation of a person or thing. It can also be defined as “an image without resemblance” (Gilles Deleuze, 1990). The concept of simulacra is connected to the hyperreal that the philosopher Jean Baudrillard defined as “more real than real” in which something fake comes to be more definitive than reality itself.

The last concept is feigning which can simply be defined as faking. However from the understanding of the text Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard “to simulate is not simply to feign: someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and pretend he is ill. Someone who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms”. Therefore feigning can be defined as masking, while simulation threatens the difference between what is considered “true” and “false”, between what is “real” and “imaginary”.

We can therefore create a difference between simulation and representation. Representation is about the principle in which the feigning and the real are equivalent. On the other hand simulation is about the negation of the sign as value and the sign as a death sentence of every reference.

Inexistence

Letter from an inexistent place

To the future generations or others,

You might not understand what I am talking about since this place might not exist in the future due to destruction and greed. Or maybe this place did not exist in the first place. Here everything is so lonely, no one can trust anybody. I wonder how we became like this, probably by having everything we ever wanted. They say we are all different however due time traveling studies we discovered that we are not. I thought that Torn was a place where everyone could live in harmony, but I guess not. We ended up being what we feared: human (habitants of Earth, the third planet in the solar system).

I saw some pictures of Earth and it is so different from our planet. There are so many different colors while here everything is dark since we are the most far away planet form the sun in the solar system. That is probably why everyone here lived based on sounds and smell.

Before your generation was born this planet was full of sea creatures and your ancestors lived under the sea and I am sure that now everything is dry and the sea has wither.

Tornans did not sleep because it was said that sleeping would curse you and that the sea creatures would kill you. But I wonder if by “killing” they actually meant that this place is a dream and that we would wake up somewhere we do not know, with people that we do not know. I have heard of afterlife in books found while time traveling and it is similar to our lives here. I will therefore finally sleep to discover the truth about Torn.

Please take care of Torn.

This is me! Animation Planning

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Bleached Dreams – Troubling Places

This class was based one three main ideas: non-existing, simulation and unreal. This was explored by the introduction to a famous French philosopher named Jean Baudrillard who wrote an text titled “Simulacra and Simulations” which was given out in order to have a better understanding of the class.

“Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. The act of simulating something first requires that a model be developed; this model represents the key characteristics or behaviour/functions of the selected physical or abstract system or process.”

• Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) NASA was a  simulation that was used for the astronauts back then as training

• MARS – Desert Research Station was a simulation to allow the astronauts to get used to a life on Mars in earth in the desert.

• Flight Simulator is used to train the staff (pilots) to learn how to fly an airplane (OCULUS RIFT).

• Project Syria: virtual reality used in Germany in order to simulate the war in Syria from the point of view of the journalist to understand how journalism could work in case of war.

• eXistenZ, movie directed by David Cronenberg in 1999: at that time the idea of the matrix was popular and how life is a simulation. A video game designer created a virtual reality called matrix where the characters could connect their bodies to certain props and devices to then transport in another reality. The idea of disgust and he expects everyone to be perfect. Idea of hyper reality is giving us the opportunity to distract us from out own reality, and the simulation holds the idea of another reality added to our own reality.

• Blade Runner, movie directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. Ideas of replicas (androids/computers) that become so real that there is no more distinction between real and replica (artificial memories) (extract)

 

“Disneyland is presented as imaginary in the order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles an the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving reality principles”

-Jean Baudrillard

• The Disneyization of society or also called Disneyfication: describes the transformation of a society to resemble the theme parks of the Walt Disney Corporation based on consumption, merchandising and emotional labour. This concept was created by Andre Kehoe to portray the principles of Disney theme parks that dominate more and more sectors of society.

e.g. Dubai Mall

e.g. SUBURBIA: every highway directs to a shopping mall and the concept that we are surrounded non stop by movements of society and merchandising.

“Everything proceeds as if space had been trapped by time, as if there were no history other than the last 48 hours of news, as if each individual history were drawing, its motive, its words and images, from the inexhaustible stock of an unending history in the present.”

– Marc Augé “Non-Places”

Marc Augé want to describe the concept of space that exists only to guide us through.

e.g. Milton Keynes

 

“Was nothing real?

You were real. That’s what made you do so good to watch. There is no more truth out there than there is in the world I created for you. The same lies, the same deceit. But in my world, you have nothing to fear.”

– The Truman Show, Peter Weir, 1998

Exhibition Review

The exhibition was #The Infinite Mix, a Hayward Gallery off-site exhibition presented in collaboration with The Vinyl Factory. The exhibition included 10 different artists, each one of which had a short movie created recently (2013-2016). The order of the exhibition seemed unrelated at first however after watching all the animations I understood that the order helped understanding the link between the different artists.

The movies where hard to understand at first or seemed to not have any precise meaning, however at the end of the exhibition I understood the different connections. For example the first movie was Work No 1701 by Martin Creed (2013) where different people walked one by one across the street in complete different ways. This is because the artist wants to focus on the single movements and gestures of people.

The short video I enjoyed the most is THANX 4 NOTHING by Ugo Rondinone (2015) in which the poet John Giorno performs his writing for his 70^th birthday. The room was dark and had 4 big screens on the 4 walls and small old televisions surrounding the borders of the room. The movie was in black and white showing the poet bare feet wearing a tuxedo. I really liked this short movie because I think that Rondinone was able to capture the attention of the viewer with the set up, and the poet with its sarcasm and realism of his words.

Also Everything and More by Rachel Rose (2015) in which the US astronaut David Wolf narrates his experience of looking down on Earth from space and the disorientation he experienced when he came back. This movie interested me because there is a strong contrast between the visual narrative and what the astronaut narrates. However the visual completes the words, it gives the ability to the audience to understand how David Wolf felt.

The other short movies reflected the avant-garde movement of the years 1980 because they wanted to shock the audience with different images, something we are not used to. The artists want to be remembered for what they showed, not for what we think it could represent.