A new reality...

What I want to address today is the notion of "Virtual Reality" and how it evolved from something that is not even real to begin with. In this digital era, your facebook account is your virtual ID. Even employers check a person's facebook account prior to giving them the job. Also, some people find it easier to make friends online. Worse, some don't find their lives too exciting, so they play MORPG and little by little, lose all contact to the outside "real" world. 

It all started with:

Candy Candy

We were fed fairy tales and cute stories with happy endings, when in reality, none of it is true. This perhaps is one of the things that you want to believe, like the Santa Claus myth. Even when you find out it was just a lie, you still wish you were never been told the truth. Some people escape to their own virtual world by reading, others by playing music or listening to music. And then, of course. There is those who are addicted to MMORPG online games, or those hitched on facebook.

People escaping reality to live in their own "worlds" or even dreams, is a concept that reminded me of one of my favorite movies ever: Inception! Some people go t have group dreams, because their dreams became their reality...

Practices of Looking: What is Real? And what is not?

Have you ever questioned reality? And what is reality? Is it subjective, or universal?

Is there only one reality, or are there millions of realities? Who's right and who's wrong?

What if we were all right? Or wrong? What if there was no reality...

In Art, the question of reality has long existed. Many argue that everything figurative representing something that exists in a very accurate way, is considered to be depicting reality. On the other hand, abstraction is considered to be surreal, and not faithful to our true vision of the world. But who's to know what our vision of the world is?

Paul Cezanne 

Look closely at his Paul Cezanne still life painting. It supposedly depicts reality. Life is real. That, we are sure of. In this painting, everything is dead. To me, it does not represent my reality, which is full of colors, full of life. I never spent more than five minutes staring at a bagel or an onion in a still composition at home, in school, wherever!

Jackson Pollock – Number 1

That, on the other side, is a Jackson Pollock painting. According to the theory I explained, it doesn't depict reality. But, when you think about it, it represents something chaotic, intertwined shapes, and shapes that overlap. When you look at it, you're scared, and nervous. This painting reminds you of something. It reminds you of our world. It reminds you of the wars. Of our daily stress. You could even see tree branches in some amazonian forrest somewhere on the globe. It does tell us a real story. It can be seen as reality too. 

Reality... Isn't it subjective in a way? What is reality to me, can be a myth to you, or anyone else. We always question the truth and reality of things. So what is real? And is merely an illusion?

Unknown Couple

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore

When looking at these two images, one could argue that the celebrity couple, as part of their job, and in order to keep and increase their fan base, often like to project the image of a happy couple with their partener. Out of the two pictures, one would think the first is more real, because it shows a couple from our everyday lives! Well, I say both are fake. Why? Because you can never see reality in a picture. You can't draw conclusions based on a single visual. But that's what we do everyday, isn't it? Judge, draw conclusions, without ever questioning what we all perceive as being the ultimate unquestionable truth.  

Also, it is important to mention the "epistemes", when talking about reality. An episteme means that truth changes in different eras, different times, because what was true in 1800 is not reality nowadays. And vice versa. Here. Take Leonardo Da Vinci for example. He made the first real studies of flight in the 1480's. He had over 100 drawings that illustrated his theories on flight.

He designed the Ornithopter flying machine which never got actually created, eventually. His aim was to show how man could fly. The modern day helicopter is based on this concept.

The Ornithopter - Da Vinci 

At the time, when Da Vinci doodled the ancestor of the helicopter, such a "machine" was futuristic and had absolutely NOTHING to do with their reality. No one, not even Da Vince himself, believed it could actually exist one day. 

Helicopter

Helicopters are everywhere today; we even take the plane very often. Flying isn't a myth anymore for us today. It is part of our reality. It was never part of Da Vinci's!

Dali is a surreal painter. Everything he painted, or almost, doesn't exist the way he painted it. However, there is this one painting he did, the one representing his sister at a window. Everyone says it's realistic, and not surreal, because he respects the rules of perspective in it, and because everything in it is as we see it. 

Dali - Woman at the window

In reality, if you look at it closely, this painting does not depict the truth. Look at how close the sea is. Now look at the window. It only has one window pane... Look at the reflection of the glass. It reflects a house somewhere when it is supposed to reflect the inside of the room. One last detail. The room. It is completely empty. 

Persistence of Time

 In the next two paintings I am going to discuss, Dali's surrealism is at its best. He does not pretend to paint things that he saw, but rather interpret what he sees and believes. The persistence of time shows us how when everything else has disappeared, time is still there. Everything we do is regulated by time. Time controls us. 

Perceptual anamorphic is Dali's speciality. He also likes to create optical illusions like that in the painting above. If you look at it from afar, you see two women's necks and their hair. But as you get closer, you notice that the woman in the background is not a woman, but two distant trees. Reality, illusion? It is hard to draw the line. 

 

Viewers Make Meaning

Kitsch objects are objects portraying "cheap" cultural icons that are mass-produced, and unoriginal. Some people refer to kitsch trends as objects of bad taste. However, kitsch is doing very well in the marketing world. I'll post two examples of kitsch icons, Hello Kitty, and of course the Playboy bunny. Hello Kitty was originally meant for kids. Now you can even find Hello Kitty laptops, toasters, bathrooms, cellphones, expensive jewelry and surprise surprise, even sex toys!! (Note the controversy)

It's ironic how Hello Kitty, a childhood icon, has come to sell adult products, and Playboy, which is strictly intended for adults, is also selling stationery items that are usually purchased by children. Also, some women enjoy wearing expensive Playboy jewelry. Go figure!

Kitsch uses popular images to sell cheap and popular products. Bricolage, on the other hand is another          concept altogether, that I find pretty interesting. It is "a mode of adaptation in which things (mostly commodities) are put to uses for which they were not intended and in ways that dislocate them from their normal or expected context". I found some examples of Bricolage in which an object is used in a way that it means something other than what it was originally meant to mean.

What do we see? An orange of course. One of my personal favorite fruits. It also contains Vitamins C in large quantities, so it's also healthy. Shown to anyone all over the planet, that is what this image would mean. However, in Lebanon, we have a way of politicizing everything. The orange is not just a fruit. It's the iconic symbol of some affluent political party in the country. So, the bricolage here was in using the orange for political means, out of its original food related context. 

Birkenstock! I love Birkenstock! They're just so comfortable and ergonomic. Originally, Birkenstock were born in Germany, and even today, most of them are manufactured there. In Lebanon, and in the US too, Birkenstock are worn as part of our everyday clothing. In Lebanon, they are also worn at parties or at work, occasionally. Birkenstock are not cheap and they have become very trendy around here. However, if you ever go to Germany, you find that people over there don't wear Birkenstock as part of their everyday clothing, but use them instead as house slippers. This is what they were originally intended for, that and for medical purposes, like helping to heal wounds and feet injuries. Bricolage has made Birkenstock a stylish clothing item.

Another cool example of Bricolage would be the use of chopsticks as hair ornaments. Chopsticks are meant to be used with food in asian cultures. Even in the West, they are used to eat sushi, noodles, etc... Girls and women alike, use chopsticks in their hair too. I personally use it a lot to pull up my very long hair. It is very efficient in that sense. It holds the hair together and doesn't loosen up. 

The power of an image

We are constantly surrounded by shapes, colors, textures, moods... Images are everywhere, but we sort them out unconsciously. We can either overlook them, look away, or stare at them. Either way, an image creates emotion in the viewer, whether it be positive or negative. 

We often underestimate the power of images, when in reality, images are so powerful that they can move us, hurt us, manipulate us, or even trigger crucial changes in us. 

If not for images, nothing would be the same. The world would make no sense.
I remember, when I was a child, I fell in love with photography of all mediums. A photograph is something else. It is a testimony of the past, a fleeting moment forever captured on a small sheet of paper. 

A photograph can bring back a memory, freeze a moment in time, remind us of people we once loved, of ones we lost, but also remind us of the person we once were, of our past. 

"Robert Barthes once wrote that photographs always indicate a kind of mortality evoking death in the moments in which they seem to stop time." I think he is right, that photographs can be associated not only to the past, but also to death. There is death in every picture we take, because the just when we're done taking the picture, the moment has already died. Time flies, but photography, it freezes time. I hate taking pictures of moments when am extremely happy, because I know that the picture will look nothing like reality, and because it will alter the ideal memory I might have of this particular event. It will be the testimony of its death. 

     Louis Daguerre - Boulevard du Temple (Paris 1838)

Look at the image above. It's a photograph of a Parisian boulevard taken in 1838 by Louis-Jacques Daguerre. Isn't there something weird that strikes us in this picture? Look closer. There are only two people in it. Two people in Paris, how could that be? 

The photograph is considered to be the first photograph to ever depict people. And that is because at the time, the photographer had to expose the camera to long shutter speeds. It took nearly 20 minutes to take this picture. In 20 minutes, thousands of people came and left, but they didn't stay long enough to even exist in the photograph. But there was this one man who decided he wanted to have his shoes shined, and that is how he made it into history. Him and the shoe shiner. 

I had a teacher once, who questioned us about time times and times again. He told us this one story that I can still remember: once, he was walking in a mall at a late hour, and there were these shop mannequins in the empty stores and he thought to himself that perhaps these mannequins had a life of their own too. Maybe we're just like the people in the Daguerre photograph. Maybe we live in a faster world, and we move so fast that they don't see us, that we don't exist, and that they live in a parallel world that's so slow that we can never see them move. Of course, this was just a reflexion. None of it exists, but nevertheless, I like the story. 

According to Barthes again, an image has two levels of meaning, a denotative level and a connotative level. Everything that is obvious in the image is denotative, and as we go deeper in our interpretation of it and start analyzing the context and the elements that constitute it, it's the connotative meaning that we uncover. 

Also according to Barthes, there are signs that we can all recognize and associate to feelings or brands. There's the signifier, and the signified. A smiley face for example is the signifier and joy is what is signifies. 

                                                                       Jeff Koons - Hanging Heart (2006) (9 feet tall)

This piece entitles "Hanging Heart" by contemporary artist Jeff Koons, is one of my favourite art pieces ever. On November 14, 2007, it was sold at Sotheby's New York for $23.6 million becoming, at the time, the most expensive piece by a living artist ever auctioned. At a first glance, what do we see? We see a symbol that we all recognize as being a heart. Heart here is the signifier, and love is what is usually signifies. And that is just the denotative meaning of this stainless steel sculpture/installation. It was exposed in a long hallway. We can see the reflection of the door in the heart. So one would stand at a distance and look at this enormous but yet cold heart. A heart is intended to be warm, to signify life and love. This heart is made of stainless steel. It is cold. It is huge, but hanging on a ribbon. The ribbon makes it look like a gift. Someone offering their heart, probably their love to whomever would accept it. So you enter the hallway and you look at the heart expecting to feel warm and happy, but all you see is a deformed reflexion of yourself in it. And the reflexion is so small it makes you wonder. Perhaps this heart is your heart, my heart and everybody's heart in the 21st century. It is cold, enormous, untouched. Not a trace. Mirror clear. And everyone who happens to pass by this very heart, would not dig deep enough to touch it, but only pass by it, leaving no trace of ever being there. At the time, there would be the reflexion, but the heart is so big, and we are so selfish that we can not bear to see ourselves so small, and we just walk away from it. What we now call love is a fleeting feeling, that comes and goes, but doesn't linger long enough to leave a trace. Love has an expiry date. And the heart is still in its box (the ribbon is still there) untouched by true genuine feelings. There is no time. Everything is fast today. Even love. Or the lack of it. 

     Steve Mc Curry - Afghan Girl (National Geographic 1986)

Yes images are powerful, and yes, they can have deeper underlying meanings like my interpretation of the Hanging Heart piece by british artist Jeff Koons. But sometimes, there's no need to look further for explanation or meanings. Sometimes, an image speaks for itself, and is so powerful that it becomes an icon. The image above is the photograph of an Afghan Girl in the Pakistani camps taken in 1986 by photographer Steve Mc Curry. When he took the picture, he thought it would be one like many others. But this photograph is so powerful. The green eyes of this little girl are full of anger and fear. You can sense the sufferings of her people in her expression. And it's this very expression in the girl's eyes that made it an icon. You could see it on tshirts, mugs, posters, tv, magazines, everywhere, the irony being that this girl was never aware of having ever had her photograph published. Unbeknownst to her, she became an icon. No one can look at her photograph and not feel a thing. It is one of those pictures that move us to the core.

In this case, photography was depicting the truth, but is it always a 100% reliable? The photography myth is, to me, a reality. Not before, not ever, has a picture shown the entire truth. Just like documentaries are less reliable than movies because people tend to think that they are depicting the whole truth when they are just showing the director's perspective and version of the truth. A documentary can never be entirely objective, because as long as a person is making it, he/she is being subjective. At least, when we go watch movies, we know they're just fictions.