Felix/Methods

< back to the methods page

< back to my page

S3 // Augmenting sdr & Annotation

Annotation

Synopsis: Baudrillard: Simulacra et Simulation, The possession of the simulacrum, p. 1–7

In his first chapter Baudrillard explains his thesis of the four stages of simulation. Whereas earlier a simulation was a copy of something, referring to the original and itself being clearly a reference to the real, the simulation today does not have an origin in the real anymore but is replacing the real with its own simulacra, using only signs of the real. Opposite to the real, it has no meaning. This „hyperreal“ has its own existence disconnected from any model and can create a new real.

Related to the reality in the first phase the simulation is a recognizable copy of the reality, in the second, an adapted interpretation of the reality, in the third clearly embodying the absence of a reality, but in the fourth it is being without any relation to any reality and only working for itself. Within the first three phases, the simulation is, since it is related to reality, a kind of appearance, but in the fourth existing in its own relation of the simulation.

What is happening in the fourth phase of the simulation is that it is replacing the before with itself and the before gets extinguished. What remains is the meaningless simulacrum.

Augmented sdr Text

The project is working with and researching on photographic (or lens-based) images in public media/public space that are used to create an image of the world, or an image of a public. The work will at first be an observation and examination of these images and later aims to visually appropriate the findings into an own pictorial world.

Question of interest is how reality is perceived, shaped and when reality ends and becomes simulation or where simulation becomes reality. Especially with digital means creating and using simulated environments that immediately affect the physical reality becomes more easy and more common than ever. In the omnipresent filter bubbles, a variety of „realities“ exist, but what is actually universally „real“ then? Furthermore the question on these practices impact on the democratic society arises. How would a democratic simulation look like if that is even possible?

First, a collection of images needs to be done to define the subjects of the work. This collection then needs to be put in order to find methods and construals and to finally find what the images are used for.

The search for appearances of realities was visible in many of my earlier works. With that comes also the search for simulations of reality. So is „New New Home“ approaching an architectural reality of suburban housing that involves people’s desires of living situations that are created through simulations of themselves. „Beyond“ is starting in a situation that is assuming people are living in a algorithmic controlled reality which simulates the people a free mind, but is actually controlling and using people’s minds as an extension of its own algorithmic reality.

S2 // Reviewing self-directed research

Revision

What are you making?

I am working on a project with a not yet specified outcome form/media/extent. It is working with and researching on photographic (or lens-based) images in public media/public space that are used to create an image of the world, or an image of a public. The work will at first be an observation and examination of these images and later aims to play around with the findings visually. But still, this is subject to change.

Why are you making it?

I want to research how reality is perceived, shaped and when reality ends and becomes simulation or where simulation becomes reality. With digital means creating and using simulated environments that immediately affect the physical reality becomes more easy and more common than ever. In the omnipresent filter bubbles, a variety of „realities“ exist, but what is actually universally „real“ then? I am strongly interested in how these practics affect the democratic society.

Does it relate to other work?

The search for appearances of realities was visible in many of my earlier works. With that comes also the search for simulations of reality. So is „New New Home“ approaching an architectural reality of suburban housing that involves people’s desires of living situations that are created through simulations of themselves. „Beyond“ is starting in a situation that is assuming people are living in a algorithmic controlled reality which simulates the people a free mind, but is actually controlling and using people’s minds as an extension of its own algorithmic reality.

First version/Interview from the Pad

In the Interview we talkt not specifically about the project but about something else I used to approach new skills. So the Interview is not very much related to the revised What are you making description.

What are you making? He likes to stick to possible projects than one precise project in general.

He is interested in the technology, where you can create three-dimensional image (or fake 3D-image) Because Facebook announced a feature that is rolling out now, where you can make 3D photos visible in the news feed people consuming media on phones -> good way to consume 3D because it is integrated in your phone working either with eyetracking or Facebook-App with the scrolling animation (or tilting phone -> parallax effect) Photos can be produced with new gen phones with dual lens so it could appear more on social media could get additional coverage in advertising and then spread to other fields -> because people get used to the effect flat photographs can appear boring after time when 3D-photos are being used more often

Why are you making it? What effects could this have on traditional photography connected to light-field photography transfer aesthetics to another space (outside Facebook newsfeed)

He is afraid that it might not be relevant. Because the technology requires either glasses or lenticular printing He is afraid that it can only used with smartphones.

Does t relate to other things you have done? It is only connected little to previous work He was working on a project that dealt with the design philosophy and trends of tech-companies aesthetics of silicon valley in image language

How is it different to other things you have done? It depends on how it will come out later Right now he is only dealing with technology. But he is also interested in things like illusion, simulation and reality.

What are the most significant choices have you made recently? He likes to connect the interest in technology with his interest in how reality or simulation is formed in media.

Suggest research strands:

What work relates (books, TV, film, art):

Steve suggests: this may be of interest, it is a good example of recontextualising content: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/slide/decnews.html

Steve suggests: Why not try some 'rapid prototyping. Take an hour aside to make a piece of work which makes a gesture toward your research. it could be a line of code, a sketch, a hack, a model &c.How do you translate the research questions into work?

S1 // The three project descriptions

Revisions

Beyond

Thinking Beyond is a digital software incorporated in a spatial, audio-visual installation depicting a sacral environment. Therefore it is made from an altar, a tryptichon from backlit prints displaying renderings of a moebius strip and six plates with commandments. It is interactive and provides the recipient with a tool to liberate himself from being a physical extension of an algorithmic controlled virtual society he is connected through his iPhone’s internet connection and make him a human being of free will. The emotionalising movie-soundtrack „Chariots of Fire“ is playing during the interaction of the recipient.

The intended „liberation“, as it is staged by the created fictive institution, is executed through a software, accessible through the altar, that is used as an iPhone dock. It uses generic Apple software to restrict the smarphones ability to use any kind of third party apps, as well as to connect to the internet. The 2x2 meter large altar is built of grey MDF and has a monumental appeal. The tryptichon displays the fictive Beyond-Society’s symbol, a moebius strip, stylised as minimalist productimages, referring to the design language of tech companies, especially such as Apple. The sacral appeal is continued on the audible level through playing the music by Vangelis that strengthens the emotional binding to the created institution.

With the sacral appeal and strong references to the commonly known aesthetics to Apple Inc.’s design language, that are exaggerated through its further minimisation, connected to the dystopic but though realistic idea of the recipient being an unfree personality but controlled through his smartphones software, the science-fictional installation becomes reality and through that criticises the current praxis of data-capitalism and people farming, arises awareness and provides, in a satiric manner, a method to overcome this practices. This is intended to process the personal observations and experiences of the author/artist/creator.

New New Home II

New New Home II is the second installation of an ongoing series of architectural photography. Two images, one showing a new, modern brick-wall with a door-sized, full-height window that is fully covered by a paravon with the print of a historic door on it on the inside, the other one showing the end of a new built, semi-private garden with a wall as a closing, and small garden gates to the private lawns that are also divided through small hedges. Both photographs are printed in 1:1 size, 2,80 meters long and 2,20 meters high.

The photographs are made at shady daylight with a normal lens on a medium format camera. The lines of the architecture are kept straight. Technically this creates a neutral and seemingly objective aesthetics and for that is intended to look as realistic as possible. Contrary to that the captured scenes appeal surrealistic and quirky, because of, in the first picture, the style and the positioning in front of the windows by the resident, and in the second, the layout of the gardens that seem to mainly exist of different divisions of the space. The large formats that make the recipient nearly stand in the scene exaggerate the appeal even more.

By showing explicitly new built residential spaces, the series of two is giving two contemporary documents of the exact time they were built in and photographed without the aspect of ageing. The quirkiness of the scenes is referring to the infantile humanity and a zeitgeist that existed at that moment. The display of the images took place within the same time period the photographs were taken and the buildings were designed and built. With that, the given stylisation of humanity and zeitgeist are thrown back to the recipient, who can see himself in the images.

City Center

City Center is a photographic work of 36 images displayed on a flat-lying 1x4 meter backlit display. The 6x6 photographs picture an about 40 year old shopping center, that’s architecture has hardly changed over the years. The mall is mostly empty and abandoned with some shops still in use and still maintained. The images are arranged in a straight 3x12 layout with identical distance in-between.

The photographs are made with the available light, which is daylight, falling through the glass-roof or from the sides, and fluorescent lamps from the center’s lightning. The camera is a 6x6 medium format camera that is used as well on a tripod as in the hand and captures on color negative film. The film is scanned and without editing digital printed on backlight textile. The print in its backlit frame is placed on the floor in a central position in the exhibition space, providing space to walk around.

The photographs by showing stillstand and decay are a time document referring to consume-culture and trends. The little life-signs of open shops and traces of human beings make the place appear like a human made zombie to irritate the recipient. The form of the installation, picturing a huge abstraction of an archeologists workplace and the material of the installation, coming from contemporary retail design, further focuses on the meaning of time, simultaneously putting the past, the present and the time in-between on display and through that uncovering societal change in the field of consume culture in public spaces.

First versions

Beyond

Thinking Beyond is a digital software incorporated in a spatial, audio-visual installation. It is interactive and provides the recipient with a tool to liberate him*herself from being a physical extension of an algorithmic controlled virtual society he*she is connected through his*her iPhone’s internet connection and make him*her a human being of free will. The spatial installation depicts a sacral environment, containing an altar, a tryptichon from backlit prints displaying renderings of a moebius strip and six plates with commandments of a proclaimed new society. „Chariots of Fire“ is playing during the interaction of the recipient.

The liberation is executed through a software, accessible through the altar, that is used as an iPhone dock. It uses generic Apple software to restrict the smarphones ability to use any kind of third party apps, as well as to connect to the internet. The 2x2 meter large altar is built of grey MDF and has a monumental appeal. The tryptichon displays the fictive Beyond-Society’s symbol, a moebius strip, stylised as minimalist productimages, referring to the design language of tech companies, especially such as Apple. The sacral appeal is continued on the audible level through playing the music by Vangelis that strengthens the emotional binding to the created institution.

With the sacral appeal and strong references to the commonly known aesthetics to Apple Inc.’s design language, that are exaggerated through its further minimisation, connected to the dystopic but though realistic idea of the recipient being an unfree personality but controlled through his*her smartphones software, the science-fictional installation becomes reality and through that criticises the current praxis of data-capitalism and people farming, arises awareness and provides, in a satiric manner, a method to overcome this practices.

New New Home II

New New Home II is the second installation of an ongoing series of architectural photography. Two images, one showing a new, modern brick-wall with a door-sized, full-height window that is fully covered by a paravon with the print of a historic door on it on the inside, the other one showing the end of a new built, semi-private garden with a wall as a closing, and small garden gates to the private lawns that are also divided through small hedges. Both photographs are printed in 1:1 size, 2,80 meters long and 2,20 meters high.

The photographs are made at shady daylight with a normal lens on a medium format camera. The lines of the architecture are kept straight. Technically this creates a neutral and seemingly objective aesthetics and for that is intended to look as realistic as possible. Contrary to that the captured scenes appeal surrealistic and quirky, because of, in the first picture, the style and the positioning in front of the windows by the resident, and in the second, the layout of the gardens that seem to mainly exist of different divisions of the space. The large formats that make the recipient nearly stand in the scene exaggerate the appeal even more.

By showing explicitly new built residential spaces, the series of two is giving two contemporary documents of the exact time they were built in and photographed without the aspect of ageing. The quirkiness of the scenes is referring to the infantile humanity and a zeitgeist that existed at that moment. The display of the images being within the same time period the photographs were taken and the buildings were designed and built, this stylisation of humanity and zeitgeist is thrown back to the recipient that can see him*herself in the images.

City Center

City Center is a photographic work of 36 images displayed on a flat-lying 1x4 meter backlit display. The 6x6 photographs picture an about 40 year old shopping center, that’s architecture has hardly changed over the years. The mall is mostly empty and abandoned with some shops still in use and still maintained. The images are arranged in a straight 3x12 layout with identical distance in-between.

The photographs are made with the available light, which is daylight, falling through the glass-roof or from the sides, and fluorescent lamps from the center’s lightning. The camera is a 6x6 medium format camera that is used as well on a tripod as in the hand and captures on color negative film. The film is scanned and without editing digital printed on backlight textile. The print in its backlit frame is placed on the floor in a central position in the exhibition space, providing space to walk around.

The photographs by showing stillstand and decay are a time document referring to consume-culture and trends. The little life-signs of open shops and traces of human beings make the place appear like a human made zombie to irritate the recipient. The form of the installation, picturing a huge abstraction of an archeologists workplace and the material of the installation, coming from contemporary retail design, further focuses on the meaning of time, simultaneously putting the past, the present and the time in-between on display and through that uncovering societal change in the field of consume culture in public spaces.