Thursday, February 4, 2010

[Yasmin_discussions] around simulation

Dear Yasminers,

I have been reading the posts, in a foreign language, wondering if I
understand well all the issues. Anyway what I can see, starting from my
interests, is a sort of a triple point of view of the topic "simlation".

As far as I'm concerned simulation regards: 1. epistemology; 2. imaginery;
3. art.

1. From the epistemological point of view I'd say that the shift from a
first order cybernetic to the second order cybernetic let us treat the
simulation, first, as a problem of the representation of reality (realistic
and positivistic science in a modern society) and secondly as a
costruttivistic issue. Reality is built by an observer (von Foerster) also
thanks to the simulation. So, the simulation is a process that can foresee
but also build, figure, experiment one world and the possibilities of the
experience and behaviour (I read something interesting about this in a
previous post).

2. So, the simulation seems to me a matter of the individual and collective
imaginery. Or better: the simulation is one of the functions of imaginery
(seen, with G. Durand, as the communication through the images and domain of
the symbolic).

Through the imaginery the simulation is the "practical" way to figure, think
and imagine the things. So imaginery is a quality of the individual - which
is symbolic (and the symbolic is the nature of the human beings, answering
to Pier Luigi) – and it's a social quality spread by the media.

Here we can observe again the epistemological shift which can be read as a
transition from a representationalist imaginery to a performativist
imaginery (actually I found out in this debate, with pleasure, an author sa
Karen Barad - named by F. Timeto - that I never known earlier!).

In the context of the representationlist imaginery the simulation can lead
to the idea of experience as experience through images (symbolic
representations). Here the observer is external to the observed reality (as
in the theatre for example).

In the frame of the performativist imaginery, on the contrary, the
simulation is concerned with reality as a product of the observer which is
part of the observed reality, who is object of his/her observation. The
observer is within, not external.

Here the experience is experience of the images through the body: embodied
knowledge (Maturana and Varela).

3. In these terms art updates removed possibilities, produces new forms
(Luhmann) and it can do this through the performing quality of the
simulation. We can think about famous art works as *Osmose*, by C. Davies
or, more recently, *Wave Ufo* by Mariko Mori or, in several cases of the
artistic research in the live performance: the simulation/enaction of words
is concerned with the embodied experience of the images, through the
simulation of the body.As it happens, in a more clearly way, in the online
worlds, as SL for example, where the body, thanks to the simulation of the
body-avatar – makes experiences of an environment (Wafa Bourkhins in this
list). But here there's a film as Avatar to mark a further step beyond…

Bests

Laura

--
Laura Gemini
Lab. LaRiCA - Facoltà di Sociologia
Un. degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo"
Dipartimento di Scienze delle Comunicazione. Media, linguaggi, spettacolo
Via Saffi 15 - 61029 Urbino (PU)
+39 0722 305726
http://incertezzacreativa.wordpress.com
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