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differentkindapiratemovies-blog · 6 years ago

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Essay on Simulation

Jean Baudrillard argues that the image “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum” (1983: 10-11). With reference to specific examples, consider the role of simulation in contemporary media practice.

In this essay, I will be talking about simulation in the modern context and examining certain media that uses simulation in an effective and meaningful way. I will investigate whether or not Jean Baudrillard was right in saying that there is no true reality remaining in the “real” world - which is an interesting thing to say, especially in the nineteen eighties before the golden age of video games, The Matrix and social media.

The most obvious example of simulation in the modern era is video games. In 1983 when Baudrillard argued his point, video games were relatively new and primitive. Nowadays, we have technology such as virtual reality (probably the best example of simulation in video games) however I will discuss this fully later on. For now I would like to talk about a recent video game and a favourite of mine called Red Dead Redemption 2, and how the gaming industry is pushing constantly to make games more “realistic”. I find Red Dead Redemption 2 a really interesting game considering its success at this point in history. In the developed world we are at the most technologically advanced we’ve ever been, with our society not being that different from speculative cyberpunk dystopian realities, complete with touch screen magic technology and sprawling cities; yet despite this, the most successful piece of fiction of last year was a video game in which you got play as a frontiersmen at the turn of the 20th century, at a point in history where “society” wasn’t even fully formed and civilisation and technology were limited to say the least.

I think a lot of people like to lose themselves in this world because our modern world is, well, complicated - and going back to the simple life and playing make believe of an outlaw in the old west is enjoyable. But why? Not only is it the polar opposite of our society now, but the developers even incorporated incredibly realistic mechanics to make it closer to a cowboy simulator than to any kind of video game as we know. Details such as taking care of your horse, whistling for it to return to you in real time, your horse not being able to hear you if you are too far away, eating and drinking, hair growth across time, slowly traveling across a natural landscape that hasn’t yet been dominated by skyscrapers and environment not yet ruined by pollution. They went to great lengths to make every detail of the game realistic, sacrificing fun at certain times, yet it is still such a great and immersive experience.

“Red Dead Redemption 2, a new video game about an outlaw gang on the American frontier in 1899, has been met with huge adoration. Journalists have lauded it as a “landmark” title, a “technological masterpiece”, even a “watershed moment” in entertainment. Much of the praise has focused on how developer Rockstar Games has coded a “living” game world that oozes character and aesthetic richness. However, now that the digital dust has started to settle, that same world has come in for criticism. Gamers have dubbed the title “boring” and “slow,” with their enjoyment of the game noticeably impeded by “clunky controls” and the lack of easy “fast travel” between destinations.”

Matt Reynolds for Wired recently complained that Red Dead Redemption 2 ultimately:

“Feels like a chore. Unfortunately, performing work-like tasks and living the “every day” in games can easily test our patience. The closer a game gets to any semblance of reality, the greater the player notices its flaws. In “reality”, most of us (at least on a basic level) can choose when to do things, perform tasks freely and organically, and process multiple sensations while doing them (such as the weight of an item, or our own limited strength). In ultra-realistic games, those expectations are quickly frustrated: we push a complex sequence of buttons to perform simple actions (such as drawing a gun), we lose authorial control (and voice) to orchestrated story arcs (Red Dead’s set missions), and narrow visual cues become an excuse for human experience. In-game realism is quite a different property, then, to the world outside.”

Returning to the historical significance of its creation, I find it interesting that the game is set at the point in history that it is, perhaps some kind of parallel between the America of the past and the modern political climate of America is being made. A time in American history of great change in both society and politics, something maybe modern Americans can relate to. And what’s the difference if you can recreate a reality that is better? Why wouldn’t you choose the simulation? And if there really is a fine line between the two, then why focus on this imperfect world when in the simulation the problems are manageable, despite the fact that in video games, scenarios are usually higher stakes? Perhaps real life just isn’t good enough, but it's strange that we are constantly trying to recreate it.

Nothing is an original - just a copy of something else, an idea of something that was once reality but now a recreation used symbolically to communicate with us in a familiar way.

I had a strange moment the other day when I was watching my friend playing The Sims 4, a video game where you can create your own character and simulate your own day to day life. You can do whatever you want, be the person you’ve always wanted to be. It sounds like Black Mirror episode. Anyway, I hadn’t been feeling very good that day and I looked up to find that my character (who was, yes, more handsome, had a nicer house so and so on) was also depressed, moping around his house in his bed wear. She had recreated us in the video game and my character was doing exactly what I was doing: moping around the house in my pyjamas. It was eerie and kind of creeped me out. I thought to myself “Great, now even in a situation where I could create my own perfect scenario, I’m still depressed. What kind of simulation is this?”

Video games are a strange simulation, especially when we try to capture life so desperately within them, something video games didn’t try to do just several decades ago. We even have virtual reality. It’s in the title. A way in which you can utterly block yourself off from wherever you are and immerse yourself in a totally different world, saying goodbye to the classic TV and couch set up. As a species we seem to avoid reality more and more, yet we can’t help but desperately try to recreate it. Perhaps real life just isn’t good enough.

“Lost, like tears in rain” says the android that Deckard has been tracking down in the final scene of the cinematic masterpiece Blade Runner. An android; a man simulated, recreated to change the imperfections of man into the optimised machine. However, not all is good, as their life span is nothing more than a couple of years. A downfall on trying to simulate the real, an imperfection. But what is truly the difference? The androids have developed feelings and demand their right to live. They may be the “bad guys” of the film, but in the final act the “evil” existential android talks about his emotions in a beautifully poetic way, expressing that his memories don’t mean a thing and will be lost like tears in rain along with everything else. This beautiful monologue illustrates that this simulated person is in fact just as human as anyone else. If you can recall memories as reality, and they appear to be real, then what truly is difference? The movie was based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, the title in reference to the sought after android animals that people buy in the book as proof that they can feel empathy - having a real one is considered a status symbol and are way too expensive for the common person. It is implied that androids can in fact dream of real sheep and this questions the line between man and android.

Another cinematic example is The Matrix, which is influenced by the ideas of Jean Baudriallard himself. The main character, Neo (an acronym of “the one”, can even be seen reading his book Simulacra and Simulation towards the start of the movie.The Matrix is a cyberpunk science fiction film directed by the Wachowski siblings, about a hacker who is taken pulled from his own “reality” and told that the world he lives in is a simulation, and that the remainders of the real human race are all hiding out underground, as evil A.I are making farms out of humans. Neo is prophesied to be be the one who saves humanity using the ability to manipulate the simulation he was brought up in with the knowledge that its just that; a simulation. He receives guidance from a man named Morpheus, also a reference to Baudrilard’s Simulacra and Simulation. It is possible to view the movie as foreshadowing of the internet age, referencing the desert of the real and the symbols we use as a society.

Scientists even considered the idea that the world we live in is in fact a computer run simulation, in one instance saying that "We are almost certainly characters living in a computer simulation”. In some way, I believe that’s true.

“In 2001 Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, circulated the first draft of a paper suggesting that a highly advanced supercomputer — with a mass on the order of a planet — would be capable of running a simulation on a humanity-size scale. Bostrum told Vulture that he hadn't seen "The Matrix" before publishing the paper. “

Nick Bostrum went on to say: “This computer would be capable of doing 10 42. calculations per second, and it could simulate the entire history of humankind (including all our thoughts, feelings, and memories) by using less than one-millionth of its processing power for just one second. By this logic, all of humanity and our entire physical universe are just blips of data stored in the hard drive of a massive supercomputer.”

I’m sure everyone after 1999 questioned it too, which was an interesting year for the movie to released, especially with the paranoia of Y2K, an apocalyptic event that would mean machine would turn on their creators and rule the world at midnight on New Years’ Eve, 2000, although obviously this turned out not to be true. But you could say that the machines do in fact control us, just in a different way. Jean Baudrillard himself said that The Matrix had nothing to do with his work and he did not approve of the film. “The odds of us living in reality are a billion to one, some say”. The simulacrum is true.

This brings me to the famous 1929 painting The Treachery Of Images by Rene Magritte. What is this image? It’ a pipe. No, it’s not. It’s a picture of a pipe. A simulated pipe. In reality, it is not a pipe, but an image of one. The same way a map is not a picture of a place but something that represents the place that we perceive.

The society we live in currently is one big simulation. I mean, we have fictional “better" versions of ourselves plastered over the internet, simulating friendships, success and faces. We live in a world where the line between reality and simulation is being blurred more and more so with every passing year. There’s not a time of day we’re not looking at a screen, being somewhere, projecting into a different kind of “hyperreality” - even if we perceive it to be real, we are desensitised to non-reality. Once you start looking for simulation it is everywhere. Anything digital is a simulation and representation of something else. Email simulating post, emojis simulating facial expressions, editing software simulating old school film editing, everything seems to represent something else that is no longer common place in the modern world. Even as I type this I am writing on simulated paper. This page is not really here, it's not in my hands. It’s digital. It’s not real, yet it still functions just as well, if not better than actual paper.

Bibliography

John Wills , J.W. 2018. The Conversation . [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://theconversation.com/red-dead-redemption-2-can-a-video-game-be-too-realistic-106404

Alyin Woodward, A.W. 2019. Business Insider. [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-matrix-do-we-live-in-a-simulation-2019-4?r=US&IR=T

Fandom, F. no date. Matrix Wiki. [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

Simulacra and Simulation . 2019. Simulacra and Simulation . [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

The Treachery of Images. 2019. The Treachery of Images. [Online]. [6 July 2019]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

The Matrix. (1999). [video] Directed by L. Wachowski and L. Washowski. Hollywood: Warner Bros.

Blade Runner. (1982). [film] Directed by R. Scott. Hollywood: Warner Bros.

Rockstar Games. (2018). Red Dead Redemption 2. Video Game. Sony, Microsoft.

Maxis, Electronic Arts. (2017). The Sims 4. Video Game. Sony, Microsoft, PC.

Philip K. Dick, P.K.D (1968). Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?. (SF Masterworks ed.). United States: Doubleday

Baudrillard , J.B (1981). Simulacra and Simulation . (1st ed.). France: Éditions Galilée.

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