The primary “tell” of the artificial is now a surplus of reality

February 15, 2024 2:05 AM

I’ve always thought of artworks as a kind of CAPTCHA test I might not pass. Am I feeling the right things at the right pitch of intensity? What if I’m discovered to be lacking in some fundamental capacity—what if I’m the avatar or replicant? When I watch Pianowork 2 I’m not only moved and discomfited by my sense that Atkins’s digital model might be developing a capacity for pain, but I’m also made to reflect on the rightness or specificity of my own responses. from The Pain Artist by Ben Lerner [NYRB; ungated]
posted by chavenet (4 comments total)

It's an image (moving image, sequence of images, however you want to conceptualise it) of him taken by scanning him in excruciating detail as he performed, and then creating the best possible visual representation of the scan data, a sequence of details representing the observed reality. I'm not convinced this is a fundamentally different level of artificiality to a sequence of pixels representing the observed reality captured via a CCD, or the fake images of a not-real performer made by throwing light through celluloid that had previously been exposed to the real performer.

To me, they're all artificial in the same way and to the same degree - they are processed versions of reality leading to a representation through visual reproduction via technology, that tries to be as faithful to the original reality as possible. This isn't any more or less artificial to me.

If it were just a computer animation, that hasn't required a full motion suit scan of a performance in the first place, it would be different to me. But that isn't what this is - it's just fancier camera tech, especially when you consider the account if computational photography and (increasingly) "AI" shit going into a modern smartphone snap.

It isn't reality, of course, but then no projection of a video is, can be.
posted by Dysk at 2:37 AM on February 15 [5 favorites]

Not really the key critique to make of the video, but, my PS5 has rendered more believable figures. That mocap and shading was uncanny valley for me and I don't think that was the intent.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:55 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

"More human than human" is our motto.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:11 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

I’ve always thought of artworks as a kind of CAPTCHA test I might not pass

That must be exhausting
posted by echo target at 10:39 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]