Synthetic aesthetics – aesthetics of electronic media in relation to experience of space

“Synthetic aesthetics” is a concept used in relation to aesthetic production of the electronic media. Synthetic can be said to indicate the artificial aspect of the work, which again can be said to have to do with the lack of direct reference to or correspondence with the “real” world. Interesting is it then that the electronic media seem to be more and more moving towards being an integrated part of our daily lives. This observation makes the posed problem of the technique, as posed by Martin Heidegger and others, seem less important and associated with an exaggerated fear that humans would become inauthentic. On the contrary we tend to be better and better able to cope naturally with technique and the electronic media. We are able to deal without further reflection and with dexterity with the extended possibilities of many layers of reality. The life on the Internet implying an advanced inter-subjective commitment in common games and shared fictive computer generated realities seem only to be a problem to administrate by relatively few persons who loose themselves into these fictive realms. For the majority it is an extension of possibilities and practices.

If we look more closely at the aesthetic possibilities in relation to electronic media, it is a rather new possibility that we can create visual and auditive spaces simulated by the electronic media. It has become an aesthetic tool, which as integrated in architectural concerns, can be used in the concern of creating spatial atmospheres and simulations. Concrete visually examples are enormous screens at street level, projectors showing more or less figurative pictures or just advanced light. Auditive examples are music and composed noise. One could also think of electronically designed and quickly changeable odours. All synthetic components of our future life world in the city; components we begin to be more and more exposed for and habituation with.

Panorama, a spatial simulation by Ricci Albenda, which was exhibited at Andrew Kreps Gallery, 525 West 22^nd Street, NY, 2007.

If we look at the architectural productions of spaces we find the possibility of simulating what could or will not be built. Here could the artist Ricci Albenda’s spatial simulation as showed on the picture an illustrative example of which way architecture might take.

In analysing the spatial simulations it might be fruitful to look at the concepts “simulacrum” and “hyper-reality”.
A simulacrum has been talked about as a copy that does not refer to anything (cf. Bourdieu) . I.e. a simulacrum is showing something that looks like something else, but does not really refer, because it is something on its own. In using the concept Bourdieu’s primary example Las Vegas is illustrative in this context. Las Vegas takes themes and events from other places and cultures and makes them into their own through simulation into simulacrum. E.g. a romantic church in Las Vegas is not a copy in as much as it could not be confused with a medieval catholic church in France, because norms, context, materials, etc. are completely different, whereby the Las Vegas church has lost the clear reference, although there remains elements of references. Another illustrative example is television as repetition or representation of the world, and this is not a representation, because the television transforms reality into its own domain, it has its own designed right as a simulacrum. E.g. no one confuses a reality show with “reality” – it is perhaps as if it were real life, but with an undoubtedly layer of fictive set up. Many people do take the shows seriously and this kind of television is as such something in it self through the inter-subjective frame of reference and as such a part of inter-subjective reality. In specific relation to space, it is the creation of a concrete space that does not copy or even refer to a specific other space. It could be the creation of a simulated space as extension of a room or a street that relates to the present context but is something in its own.
The concept of hyper-reality refers e.g. to the tendency to do e.g. small extraordinary features or additional colouring that could light up a picture and change the atmosphere of the work. In television we have pictures showing more of ”reality” than we could have seen ourself, giving the extra knowledge and perspectives we get in comparison to what we would have been able to recognize of the event or situation if we were there our-selves. This one of the ways the Italian philosopher Mario Perniola talks about hyper-reality (Ritual Thinking, 2000: 169-170). A similar point could be said about the additional colouring make up added to nearly every picture in the press and television. These hyped colours are hyper-real in this sense. Hyper-reality is too many details with too much reality or an over-doing of precision that anaesthetize our reality, which is one of the concrete possibilities for the electronic media.
Within game industry it is a recognized fact that too much reality will distract the player and even drag too much attention from the plot of the game that the game will loose in value and attractively. One is therefore dealing with the insight that the realism should not be too complete, but that it is necessary to keep the game on a middle level between complete simulation of reality and the symbolism of the first computer games. It is indirectly recognition of the value and usefulness of the symbolic meaning in our orientation and one is aware of the possibility of showing too much. Here the possibility of hyper-reality is a border not to be crossed if the game has to work for the consumers. But in art and architecture this border might not be respected. In spatial simulations combined with concrete architectural projects the symbolic orientation would be of less importance and the hyper-reality could be a positive and creative possibility of the extension of our spatial reality together with the creative play with simulacrum. In extreme cases one could imagine buildings and bridged being added to the city at night by projectors creating future cities as depicted by the American artist Jonah Freeman shown here (1986, 2006, Andrew Kreps Gallerie, NY).