So what to think of this? A toilet spray that mimics the smell of clean linen. It is great in the beginning, yet in time your bed will smell like a toilet. Found in the futuristic wondrous world also known as ‘the supermarket’.
Related: A Society of Simulations, Fake for Real Memory, Everything is Fake. Thanks Dennis.
Written by KOERT VAN MENSVOORT, published in What you see is what you feel. PhD Thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology. ISBN: 978-90-386-1672-8 (Download PDF)
An interviewer once asked Pablo Picasso
why he paints such strange pictures
instead of painting things the way they are.
Picasso asks the man what he means.
The man then takes out a photograph
from his wallet and says, “This is my wife!”
Picasso looks at the photo and then says:
“isn’t she rather short and flat?”
INTRODUCTION
This essay aims to increase our understanding of simulations and their impact on our notion of reality. Following on some observations regarding the dominant role of visual representations in our culture, I will argue that we are now living in a society, in which simulations are often more influential, satisfying and meaningful than the things they are presumed to represent. Media technologies play a fundamental role in our cycle of meaning construction. This is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it entirely new. Yet, it has consequences for our concepts of virtual and real, which are less complementary, than they are usually understood to be.
Before you read on, a personal anecdote from my youth: when I was a child, I thought the people I saw on TV were really living inside the television. I wondered where they went when the TV was turned off and I also remember worrying it would hurt the TV, when I switched it off. Obviously, I am a grown man now and I’ve long learned that the television is just a technological device, created to project distant images into the living room of the viewers and that those flickering people weren’t actually living inside the cathode ray tube. Read the rest of this entry »
Lenka Clayton: A series of five digitally repaired images taken in Lebanon of buildings damaged by the 2006 conflict with Israel.
The images were taken specifically for this project by a journalist working in Lebanon. I deliberately asked for no information about the original buildings and had no idea how they had looked. The repairs were carried out using the ruins of the architecture as the only guide to the structure of the repaired building. All tones and textures are also limited to the information available within the original image.
Read the rest of this entry »
I found this ad very ironic; after killing the giant panda (by turning it into a logo) WWF is complaining that the Chinese are killing the living version of it. I wonder if they would change the logo when the real animals become extinct or if it would only make the logo stronger.
We already know that guys love dolls… Now learn why some mothers can never stop playing with dolls and that cuteness is defined in the mind’s eye. Image credit: Kentish Babies
Remember the Fake for Real versus Louis Vuitton case? The Fake for Real memory game was sold in a stylish box with a pattern resembling the internationally known and faked Louis Vuitton pattern. The LV pattern was ironically mimicked using right-free the ‘webdings’ font from MS Word. No can’t do, according to the lawyers of LV.
After the announcement of the redesigned Fake for Real memory game packaging, people have been asking us what happened to leftovers from the earlier edition. So what happened? In one word: TOILETPAPER. We thank the good people of Van Brunchem destruction services for their kind and professional care of our leftover 2400 memory games.
And the good news? If you happen to have an original first edition box, you are now in the possession of a rare and con-tro-ver-sial art piece.
More devastating images below. Read the rest of this entry »
After some issues with the second edition, the Fake for Real Memory Game is now back with a newly designed packaging. The game consists of 60 cards that playfully visualize the classical theme of Fake vs Real. Is everything that was once directly experienced, in our media society now replaced by simulations? Or are reproduction and imitation naturally part of life? Can you tell the fake from the real? See for yourself. Fake For Real!
All Media / Bis Publishers
ISBN 978-90-63-69-177-6
Price 19,90 Euro
Editorial Team: Koert van Mensvoort, Hendrik-Jan Grievink, Mieke Gerritzen, Arnoud van den Heuvel, Rolf Coppens, Edwin Degenhart.
Design: Hendrik-Jan Grievink, Texts: Koert van Mensvoort.
See also: Fake for Real series, Louis Vuitton VS Fake for Real, Fake for Real Essay, Fake for Real Video.
By Koert van Mensvoort, published in the FAKE FOR REAL MEMORY GAME, ISBN 978-90-63-69-177-6, All-Media / BIS 2008
Fakeness has long been associated with inferiority. Fake Rolexes that break in two weeks, plastic Christmas trees, leaky silicone breasts that cause cancer, imitation caviar. Even the ancient Greeks talked about the phenomenon of fakeness. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato describes human beings as being chained in a cave and watching shadows on the wall, without realizing that they are ‘only’ representations.
Today, the walls of Plato’s cave are so full of beamers, disco balls, plasma screens and halogen spotlights that we don’t even see the shadows on the wall. A city child washes her hair with pine–scented shampoo. Walking in the forest with her father one day, she says, “Daddy, the woods smell like shampoo.” Do we still have genuine experiences at all, or do we live in a world of make–believe?
Fakeness is traditionally associated with inferiority; cheap Rolexes that break in two weeks, plastic Christmas trees, leaking silicone breasts, imitation caviar… However, in a society in which everything is a copy of a copy, the ‘fake’ seems to gain a certain authenticity.
Can you imagine anything more classy and luxurious than these anonymous, brand less, recognizable ‘throw away’ bags re-created in durable, high quality leather by Femke de Vries? Better than the real thing!
In 2000 on a Japanese auction site, 20 real live Pokemon Pikachus were offered for 925 million dollars.
Roughly translated:
We capture each one after your order, so we guarantee its health! These are Pikachus plucked straight from the natural Pikachu forest, so they’re of much higher quality than ones you’d get from a breeder or in other regions. Great for those who are lacking in good conversations with family, who want solace if living alone, who need a new hobby, who love cute and trendy things, or who are looking for a present for a girlfriend or a child. Limited edition! Limited to only 20! First come first serve! We’ll include a 60-minute video on how to raise a Pikachu if you buy 3 months worth of Pokemon food. Source: tokyomango.com
I hope the bastards had real special powers to free themselves.
Related: Fake for Real series
Deforestation in China threatens giant pandas
How to get rid of 2400 memory games
Fake for Real Memory – Third Edition
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