Simulations, by Jean Baudrillard, is a meditation on the fact that it is useless to meditate for there is no origin to be found of the objects of society or our own identities. There was an origin, make no mistake, but beyond that in certain spades and until when the industrial age changed the game, everything has become a reiteration and coded modulation of the lawful, governing body which came before it in order to supposedly make utopia not such a far instance. But like a typical comic book villain or even a naive child who brandishes the paintbrush, not every instance of simulation and image viewing is truthful or righteous.
We want you to believe we're not paying any ta-.. Well that's another story.
This simulation of lifestyles and humans themselves speak volumes about art. I'm thinking less in modes about the originality and postmodern aspects of art, but more closer to the actual inception of craft and difficulty scale in art. The difficulty in art has become simulated through time as we enunciate on the possibilities of its rendering. A fine art drawing, with the right mechanical DNA, can be done in seconds. A movie, with simply a group of friends and the right SLR HD camera, can be simulated on the level equal to or better than Hollywood. Levels of difficulty unknown. Hyperreal standards which is becoming of all mediums in art. I don't know who to trust when it comes to critiquing a film anymore. Was that genius pan shot I just saw some idiot sliding the camera across his kitchen counter?
I'm not against the idea of it... Its just making a spectacle of the institution.
Which is inevitably swallowed itself by the simulation.
It often times requires blood and death to reinvigorate the cycle of power and simulation. Relating back to the CYCLICAL HISTORY of the Debordian spectacle, rebirthing once people realize and start revolution. When the spectacle is at its weakest, so is a simulation. A spectacle is easier to manifold than a simulation. Hence, failing the real, here we must aim at order. And that order may entail some gruesome things when it gets written on paper. Tormenting the dead in order to allign the past into a commodifiable and ductile object for craft. Reutilizing the essence of the 'perfect Indian' for historical romanticism, for example. They used to be quite the savages as far as legitimate historical documents is concerned. But as the book mentions Disney, Disney itself saw to it the Indians were human enough in its own iteration of Pochahontas. As a matter of fact, Disney is the Kong-Kong of simulcara. Disney referenced the not-so-immediate past and made, not a societal mockery of it, but a 'rejuvination' of it by recalling its tale. Its almost as if it were Disney's intellectual property as they recalled it in digital animated form. And we all know how representative 24 fps is... Digitalry is psychoanalyitic like film (Walter Benjamin)… We are the variables this endless code is tested against, resulting in constantly differential outcomes. Past industry, we now modulate what tests do to us and only through extensive recording can tell what is to be simulated as good and truth. It requires a break in history to readjust everything.
But every history is a malleable form, itself. I think about it in terms of legacies, in a certain way, or eras of past civilization which we 'presume' are the originals. The concept of legacy in itself is arguable, in which it may consist as an element of social construct. Placed within the fine arts context, and most succinctly a post-modern age involving digital aesthetic, the idea of the self contained imagination is no longer of relevance in a world of shorter distances from city to city. This is relevant to the legacy of art, for we see a clashing point between an era where the imagination was cherished versus an era where our lives and common things we to may very well be 'art itself'. Just as importantly, this is relevant to legacies in a global society where we witness a superflous amount of ideas being appropriated from dynasties which emerged prior to our own. The difficulty for individuals to attain their own dynasty is extreme, for probable vectors of origin are now being occupied by past accomplishment. Thus, the challenge for global society, which runs parallel to the art world, in finding its own definite legacy in time is more difficult without either subtracting lucrative material (art imitating life) or simply falling into dystopian themes. In short, legacies of the romantic yesteryear are challenged to take concrete form in modern living, since their ideas are already realized repeatedly by a sort of trial-and-error. This naive spectacle can be attributed to never finding the origin point of creation lawfully or aesthetically. Are the grand legacies we consider timeless and without peers just a simulation of something which occured beforehand?
But every history is a malleable form, itself. I think about it in terms of legacies, in a certain way, or eras of past civilization which we 'presume' are the originals. The concept of legacy in itself is arguable, in which it may consist as an element of social construct. Placed within the fine arts context, and most succinctly a post-modern age involving digital aesthetic, the idea of the self contained imagination is no longer of relevance in a world of shorter distances from city to city. This is relevant to the legacy of art, for we see a clashing point between an era where the imagination was cherished versus an era where our lives and common things we to may very well be 'art itself'. Just as importantly, this is relevant to legacies in a global society where we witness a superflous amount of ideas being appropriated from dynasties which emerged prior to our own. The difficulty for individuals to attain their own dynasty is extreme, for probable vectors of origin are now being occupied by past accomplishment. Thus, the challenge for global society, which runs parallel to the art world, in finding its own definite legacy in time is more difficult without either subtracting lucrative material (art imitating life) or simply falling into dystopian themes. In short, legacies of the romantic yesteryear are challenged to take concrete form in modern living, since their ideas are already realized repeatedly by a sort of trial-and-error. This naive spectacle can be attributed to never finding the origin point of creation lawfully or aesthetically. Are the grand legacies we consider timeless and without peers just a simulation of something which occured beforehand?
To finish with... I found an instance of hyper-hyper realism. Pro wrestling… Is as real as it gets. Some say it is fake, but its just as "real" as any movie, television show, or fiction novel you'll read… And then some. It is the closest to original, as the neanderthal expression of people telling stories with their bodies relate back to the stone age. It is "very" aware of its own simualtion, recording its own history, and becoming its own bubble. The stories are fake. The pain is real. A hyper-hyper simulation.
Gee that sure looked fake. Just as fake as your Harry Potter, you snobby hypocrite.
(Apologies to the reader if they are not a snobby hypocrite.)
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