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Simulation/Simulacra/Solipsism

Vegas sits in a niche of its own: The Sim City.

The existence of simulation is dependent on the perception of authenticity, how the term is defined and how it applies to environment rather than ‘self’. Heidegger, Sartre, Camus - all have their own interpretations and fields of authenticity of the SELF; identity in mind of inevitable death, responsibility for the self and experience, and rebellion against an absurd universe, respectively (and briefly). I look for a definition of authenticity in relation to PLACE, extraspect in place of introspect; environment and object as produced and experienced not purposefully but incidentally, regardless of intention of design or intention of user. Once we have a definition of authenticity, we can access how authenticity exists - scale, spectrum, tesseract - and visualise how simulation/simulacra interacts with this, and how we might interact with simulation. 

“of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine.”

The generally accepted main definition of the word. By this definition Vegas is inauthentic, exists as a replica/simulation of other pre-existing objects, however I would argue Vegas’s positive authenticity based on the significantly felt emotions, stories, movements that arise from experiencing Vegas as environment. I would define an object or environment as authentic if that object or place interacts with human psyche, exists in the mind in absence, in an emotionally significant way; be the following be judged by an outsider as inauthentic because of their origins, because they came about due to the ‘lull’, because they can be undermined by logic and judgment of perceived contrivance, if an emotion is felt and a story experienced significantly (in reality-reality or in the user’s imagination-reality) the inciting OBJECT must also be defined as authentic, an inciter of psycho-action. 

Simulation is much more simply defined as ‘imitation of a situation or process’, but this definition needs to expanded and applied to a wider context here, incorporating Baudrillard’s model of the simulacra, sim of a sim. Simulation itself is something I see as utterly essential to our existence; life without simulation is life without art, without imagination, without escape. We simulate our desire for love and affection through romantic plays and stories; we simulate our desire for exhilaration through horror films, theme parks and ghost stories; we simulate our desire for escape through fantasy video games, poetry, daydreams. The most obvious and perhaps most valuable of these examples is the success of the Sims games, and their enduring hold over us. Something that is commonly mentioned in reviews of the game series is the phenomenon of obsession,15 of spending hours and hours per day for weeks on end completely immersed in your simulated world. You have the opportunity to craft people exactly how you want them to be, give them houses you wish you lived in, jobs you wish you had, dramas which have no consequence on your real life. It is a chance to give yourself the life you wish you had, and live it in secret; be these ‘conventional aims or goals, those which you have acknowledged to yourself and others, desires access and approved of, or, conversely, those which inhabit a part of the psyche we would rather not focus on. Put your sim in a swimming pool and take away the ladders; surround them with furniture and set it alight; watch as they become a mess, the ‘black sheep’ of their family or neighbourhood, destroy their comfort and their relationships. Both are ways to play the game, and both represent sides of human desire I hope to explore in my work; not just control or freedom, but our perceptions of good or evil, our perceptions of ourselves and our understanding of our own desires to control, help, injure, kill, and what they can teach us. 

Vegas as simulation is ubiquitous. Throughout its tourist quarters the miniature Eiffel Tower of Paris Las Vegas, half the size of the original, sits astride an existing building, and stands as a memento to the nature of human admiration and desire to experience the unknown. People flock to the replica as they do to the original despite its size, its lack of history, content with the facade which to them represents Paris, a place which has its own character perpetuated by film, television, media, instagram, which to those who have never experienced it may as well be a fiction. Casinos on the scale of towns, buildings synonymous with parts of the world that are unknown to the users; the Venetian’s imitation of the fairytale canals and serenading gondoliers of Venice; the architecture of Caesar’s Palace, a simulation of Ancient Greek and Roman colonnades, pillars widened at the bottom and narrowed at the top to give an illusion of increased height, of massive scale, of the sublime. Where the line from simulation to simulacra is crossed is in the parts of tourist Vegas that are not recognisably a copy of anything from our reality; parts which are engineered to suggest fiction, and a landscape which has been designed as pure opulence, a world above the clouds. Lakes filled with dancing fountains, neon signs for strip shows and bars which put you in mind of Baz Luhrmann’s more ostentatious work, buildings with pure gold facades and music played out of bushes providing a score to your walk towards the medieval fairy-tale castles of the Excalibur. Every feature, crowded and glowing, represents fantasy, represents what we want Las Vegas to be, “simultaneously fantastic and unreal, yet tangible and available for purchase”.

Casinos, streets, people, Vegas is a living example of the ‘SCRIPTED SPACE’, simulation made scene. Coined by Norman Klein, a scripted space is defined as a:

“type of pedestrian space which replicates the complexity of urban life within highly staged 'maximum security' compounds”.16

“With the concept of scripted spaces, we emphasise the close relationship in consumer culture between landscape and entertainment, and ultimately landscape and fantasy, and underline the powerful effect that landscape architects can have upon people's fantasies and actions.”16

The phrase has been used as a descriptor for myriad settings including theme parks, playgrounds, museums and, most relevantly, cities. Vegas is a multitude of these spaces all operating as moving parts of the ultimate scripted experience, laid out for us and subtly directing us in the ways it wants us to see, to feel, to share. One specific medium to decode Vegas, above theme park or playground or any other metaphor which can be attributed to it, is the video game. A location, whether viewed as ‘real’ or not, which is planned, designed, scripted, executed and used in the precise way the programmer wants us to use it, the video game is the perfect access point to Vegas not just in its physical manifestation, but also the way in which it uses occurrence and characters to direct us. Venturi and Scott-Brown argue that the most significant realisation in relation to the architecture of pedestrian experienced Vegas is the detachment from building-identity and the subsequent movement towards symbolism, signage, semiotics.17 While this is a valuable insight, and certainly relevant to the video-game experience of being shown where to go by illuminated signs, glowing pavement paths, or highlighted destinations, these are all ways in which we are physically rerouted in our experience. The action of moving from one place to another is not in and of itself a representative description of what you are doing, why you are performing the movement, what your end goals are. The way we receive instruction and perceived desire to Move is through conversation with the characters around us, directing us where to go, who to talk to, where to visit, what to look for. The NPC, in my opinion, is the most significant aspect of the simulation, and the aspect which can be applied most relevantly to my area of research. 

The NPC (non-playable character) counts as other, as active character without concept of personality or further complicated existence. Video games are first person, are personAL, are an extension of self as self exists in the real world, making everyone else NPC, those which exist only as interaction with the self, main character. 

“A play on video games "non-player character" mixed with a play on The Simulation Hypothesis.

An NPC is seemingly a human that is unable to think objectively.

We exist in a simulated reality and some humans take on the role of NPCs, spouting "opinions" they are programmed to spout and repeating in a cult-like manner.

Liberal: (Yelling Fuck Trump! Ban guns! 

Conservative: (Yelling) Fuck Hillary! Ban immigrants!

Friend: Bro, I’m sick of all these people just repeating shit... 

Me: Its hard to move forward with all these NPCs.”18

Whether we are talking about the hotel concierge, the bellhop, the croupier, the tourists or the groups of scantily-clad women on plaza corners handing out cards directing you to bars with free shots or providing you with numbers to call for ‘barely legal girls’, these are all characters that we see as incidental to our presence in that place, at that time. They are characters, personalities exaggerated or invented to fit their role; but they are something else underneath, something more solid which cannot be escaped/pretended over. It’s difficult to imagine that these are people with lives, families, jobs, friends, who do not just dissolve back into code as soon as they leave our lines of sight. The woman on the slot machine has been there for hours, but we will only see her for a moment; in her mind, in all of their minds, they are the protagonist of their own version of that space. How many moments by ow many people have been spent at that one slot machine? We talk about man-hours in terms of work and service, but how many overlapping memories, moments, stories, observations, relationships have been formed in that one space, never acknowledged by the people who overlap them? This concept of the NPC is integral to my exploration of desire and motivation, and further to the exploration of the way these spaces are formed and built, and what it might mean for future designers, architects, city planners and users. We must imagine a present, and a future, in which either we must face the truth that we are not the sole protagonist in the progression of human experience and development; or, conceptually, we might continue in this comfortable occupation, and move towards a future in which we experience life in solitude, a panel of glass between ourselves and the perceived NPCs amongst whom we move, disconnected. (F451) 

Caden Cotard (Synecdoche, New York) is an example in art of this concept of the NPC, this disconnection. 

“Synecdoche, New York is a film that concerns itself with examining solipsism, and in disposing of the harmful concept of “The Other”. Solipsism is the belief that only one’s own mind is certain to exist; that one’s perception of reality and events is the only certainty, the only truth. As a philosophy, it is akin to Objectivism — the belief that the pursuit of one’s own self interest is the only moral obligation to which any human is bound. […] The film examines solipsism at its worst, demonstrating the dangers of such a philosophy through its chosen vehicle: Caden Cotard.”

Cotard hires actors to simulate the people in his play, then actors to play the actors; people swap roles, come to represent each other, themselves, simulacra of a reality which exists only in Cotard's head (the Main Character) and in the simulated New York City he has created in his warehouse. The warehouse is an incredibly on-the-nose representation of a scripted space, a literal theatre setting which uniquely bridges the gap between fiction and reality in a similar way to Vegas. 

As well as a way to explain the NPC, Synechdoche, New York represents the link I have found between it as a concept and my point of self-exploration and self-knowledge through fantasy, desire and stories.