Thursday, January 21, 2010

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Around Simulation-simulation and everyday life

Beautiful examples, indeed!

We could add, remaining in theme, the renaissance perspective, which set up the "order" of the representation (behind the painted surface) and the "order" of the space where the viewer is (the space before the surface, that in general we call the "real" space). Indeed, in order to see a scene at its best we have to view it from a precise viewpoint or a limited area, and moving away from this position we loose information.

Today we are immersed in simulations through many media which use perspective: from photography to cinema, to video, to computer animations, virtual reality, until the 3D videogames and the metaverses. Perspective, which is a mathematical, cultural, historical... issue, became a "natural" part of our way of representing, and especially of viewing, the world.

Pier Luigi

Il giorno 21/gen/2010, alle ore 05.30, r buiani ha scritto:

> ...continued
>
> I can't help but noticing how simulation reflects sociocultural and technological tendencies that we can observe in almost all human transactions today. this, I find, happens in a very subtle, imperceptible way.
>
> here are some examples to get us thinking about simulation in everyday life:
>
> 1) the process of choosing a piece of technology: we are drawn to a Mac or a Ipod or a Iphone, not a computer, a portable music device, or a cellular phone. aspects concerning the design, the aesthetics, or the coolness that these tools symbolize usually take the front seat.
>
> 2) thinking about sound, I am drawn to the idea behind the MP3 format: substantially, it is a simulation of the original sound, compressed, re-packaged and brought to us according to psychoacustic principles that eliminate "useless" noise, or frequency that our ear can't normally perceive. (see the work of Jonathan Sterne on Media Culture and Society - 2006- on MP3 for a more comprehensive discussion. I can send the specific article to those who are interested)
>
> 3) the fantastic worlds we see in blockbusters movies such as the very recent Avatar exhibits an imagery that is simultaneously photorealistic (that is, it shows some "serial" resemblance to objects and landscapes that we can find in the real world) and hyperreal (all objects exhibit literally some "extra" elements that make them more real than real and yet imagined). In particular, I have to thanks Pier Luigi for directing my attention to the Pandorapedia (http://networkedblogs.com/p23720729)I was surprised to see how the whole ecosystem articulated in the movie has been imagined and constructed according to ethological/anthropological/botanical principles, carefully classified and taxonomized in a "Linnaean" style, and in its smallest details. In this regard, I would be interested in knowing some commentaries: is this a way to legitimize this hyperreal world?
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> rb
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--
Pier Luigi Capucci
e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
skype: plcapucci

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