Replication
Perception
Reality
Spectator
What is the source
What is the relationship to the research
Where do you agree or disagree and why?
What did I not understand?
What I discovered?
What is inspiring me?
I was recently reading Jean Baudrillard's book about simulation and simulacra. As my research is investigating the replication of reality I see a strong connection with Baudrillards ideas about what simulation is and how our society is structured nowadays around signs, images and representations. According to Baudrillard stimaulation is opposed to representation. If in representation there are signs representing reality,
Field notes:
You can make a replica out of a paprika to look exactly the same but it will fail soon. The weight is not the same, it is solid and heavier. If you drop it, it will probably break.
The replica will be very similar with the original one the first day, but as time passes, the differences will increase. The original paprika gets old.. it wrinkles and shrinks, it changes every day. The paprika will remain the same forever. It is like a photo, a snapshot in time.
It is difficult to produce a perfect replica of something that is changing fast in time. Everything is changing in time but the spead of the transformation matters when you try to make a replica.
Replication is inevitably related to comparison.
Every step of the process affects how the rreplica will be in the end. Even when you use a mold it is impossible to create two replicas that are exactly the same. Even if the process is exact and the same every time there are still many facts that can't be done in the same way.
The mold is the same but the clay doesn't have the same density each time. sometimes you need to add more water and you can easily add more than it needs. Then it is more liquid, it needs more time to dry. Sometimes you will forget it in the dry closet and it will shrinkle more that it should or than it did the previous time. Sometimes you will be lazy and you wont put enough glaze and there will be more white spots.
Replicating needs patience and persistance. The accuracy of the replica depends on the dedication of the maker.
The sound of the replica is unexpested.
The mass of its replica and how it is distributed is uncontrolable and hense different in each case.You can notice it when you hang the replicas. They move differently.
The making process of a replica takes time. When the replica was completed, the original paprika didn't exist anymore.. not in the same condition. Then the replica was a memory of the original.
As the original paprika doesn't exist anymore, every fail of the replica will pass as it was part of the original. Both the details that the replica failled to copy and the details that never existed on the original but by accident were added on the replica.
Although we are aware that the replica didn't copy all the properties of the original we are not so aware that even the form of the replica wasn't what the replica copied. Not only because it isn't accurate enough but also because the form of the paprika was never something fixed. The paprika is transforming continiously, but by replicating in a specific moment of this process we highlight its form at that moment as the main one. Whatever the paprika was before this stage or would be after has fallen into decay but that specific moment is saved forever and it becomes representative for the paprika as an entity.
I choose to make a replica of a paprika because:
Paprikas are alive and due to that they transform fast in time.
They are special as every each of them has a quite unique shape.
They have attractive appearance and color and an interesting form.
I like to eat them.
Field notes:
The 'paprika's' replica
I chose to make a replica of a paprika.
I chose to make a replica of a paprika.. because..
Paprikas are alive and due to that they transform fast in time.
They are special as every each of them has quite a unique shape.
They have attractive appearance and color and if you open them they are hollow.
I like to eat them I like their color I like the fact that they are hollow.
_
I chose to make the paprika's replica with clay 'cause I can mold it in many ways.
I touch the paprika, I touch the clay and I form its curvy shape
_
Replication is inevitably related to comparison. It is a continous act of selective comparison.
I made a quite accurate replica of a paprika.
The weight is not the same, the replica is heavier.
If you drop it, instead of bouncing off or rolling away it will break.
You can't squeeze it like the real paprika, it is stiff and hard.
The replica's sound is unexpected. It is of course the sound of its true material. The sound of the baked clay. It is the sound your cup of coffee makes when by accident hits your plate.
The mass of the replica and how it is distributed is uncontrollable and hence different in each case.
You will notice it if you hang the replicas.
They will move differently.
You will notice it if you try to ballance them in a wierd angle.
They will roll over differently.
The replica doesn't smell like the paprika and it's cold.
But it looks exactly like the paprika! The color is the same!
It is an accurate replica.
A replica is a contradiction itself.
It coppies exactly some of the aspects of the original and omits the others.
Producing a perfect replica of something alive, of something that is constantly changing over time, is challenging.
Eventually everything changes through time but the pace of the transformation affects the success of the replication.
The pace of the transformation affects the relation of the replica with the original.
The replica will be very similar to the paprika the first day, but as time passes, the differences will slowly reveal.
The original paprika gets old..
It wrinkles and it shrinks.
It changes every day and every day it changes.
The replica remains always the same.
The making process of a replica with clay takes time.
When the replica was completed, the original paprika didn't exist anymore.. not in the same condition.
Then the replica becomes a memory of the original in a fragment of time.
Replicating needs patience and persistance.
The accuracy of the replica depends on the dedication of the maker.
Every step of the process affects how the replica will be in the end.
Even when you use a mold it is impossible to create two replicas that are exactly the same.
Even if the process is precisely the same every time there are still many factors that don’t allow it to be done in the same way.
The mold is the same but the clay doesn't have the same density each time. Sometimes you need to add more water and you can easily add more than it needs. Then it is more liquid, it needs more time to dry.
Sometimes you will forget it in the dry closet and it will shrinkle more that it should or than it did the previous time.
Sometimes you will be lazy and you won't put enough glaze and there will be white spots.
One of the differences the replica has from the original is the influence of the maker. If we assume that the original is something objective and autonomous, its replica will be by definition something subjective as it is created according to the point of view of the maker and the way he perceived the original. The replica is not the representation of the original, it is the representation of how the maker perceived the original.
When the original doesn't exist the replica becomes more valuable
As the original paprika doesn't exist anymore, every fail of the replica will pass as it was part of the original.
Both the details that the replica failled to copy and the details that never existed on the original but by accident were added on the replica.
Although we are aware that the replica didn't copy all the properties of the original we are not so aware that even the form of the replica wasn't what the replica copied. Not only because it isn't accurate enough but also because the form of the paprika was never something fixed.
The paprika is transforming continiously, but by replicating it in a specific moment of this process we highlight its form at that moment as a main one. Whatever the paprika was before this stage or would be after has fallen into decay but that specific moment is saved forever and it becomes representative for the paprika as an entity.
When you replicate something, even a replica, it becomes the 'original' for the new replica.
By replicating a replica you transform it into an original.
What is a replica.
Definitions
My need to create my own definition through the process of making a replica.
- why I chose to make the replica of the paprika
- why I chose this way of replication
Things that could be defined us replicas: Examples: Copy, Video, Photo, Simulation, Sound Recording
The intention/purpose defines what the replica actually is :
Reproduction, Documentation, Simulation, Representation
(Baudrillard)
The replica in my work: deception
Ocula Magazine Interview with Francis Alys:
I wanted to ask you about The Fabiola Project, which you have collated over the years. Initially you were talking about the instinct of doing something very quickly and presenting it, but in this case, the work has taken many years to collate.
Very early on, I was very interested in the process of copying. I was working with sign painters who were copying my own images. It was a game of me giving them an image, they would do their own version, I would do a version on the basis of their interpretation, and so on. It was this back and forth and our image would change slightly in the process of collaboration.
Anyway, this led me to an interest in this 1885 portrait of Fabiola. At first, I just started buying the reproductions at flea markets because I was intrigued by the repetition of that image. But then I realised that that same image was also copied in Latin America, Lebanon, Russia, and so on.
It made me question the status of an icon. What is an icon? Is an icon defined by official art history? Or is an icon defined by, in this case, what seems to be an amateur painter's obsession with a particular image?
As you mention, it is a project that has happened over a number of years. It started as my own initiative, and then it became autonomous, because people started sending me copies from different parts of the world.
I sort of stopped looking for them or collecting them. The collection is well over 600 paintings now. It's growing out of a collective initiative. So even if I wanted to stop it, it just grows, by its own inertia. I think I found the first one in 1994, so it's been going on for many, many years now.
Replicas
What is a replica?
In a way, the word replica can be very broad and associated with many different things. If we think of it as a representation or as a copy we will then realise that we are surrounded by many kinds of replicas. Nowadays almost everything is doublicated but a replica is neither just a double nor a simple representation. Actually the more I look for its synonyms the more I question what distinguishes the replica from a copy, a representation, a reproduction, a version or a documentation. As the 'replica' is a core element of my artistic system, there is a strong ergency for me to define it.
My first attempt to find the definition of the word didn't leave me satisfied enough. Most definitions relate the word 'replica' with very specifiic objects and exclude various others that I would identify as such. According to wikipedia:
A replica is an exact copy, such as of a painting, as it was executed by the original artist or a copy or a reproduction, especially one on a scale smaller than the original.
A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance.
In my practice, 'replicas' are not related with paintings, nor are always smaller than the original; I could define them as 'copies that closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance' but still this definition is missing a lot in order to correspond to the notion of the replica as I mean it. To be honest, I am still not entirely sure of its meaning and even now there are examples that make me doubt the definition I formulated and I will state later.
However, in order to conclude to a meaning which would make clear how I approach this term I decided to dive further into the process of replication. Normally, in my practice, I replicate the 'existing environment'. Until now I have done this with various means, hence I used as replicas, mirrors, scaled models and sound or video recordings which I projected or displayed though screens and other devices. Nevertheless, for the purpose of examining the notion of the replica through its making process, I decided to copy a paprika , and make its replica with clay.
I chose the paprika because of its shape, which is noticeably unique among others of the same kind, because of the size, which is handy to hold and mold and also because it is an alive entity and reflects the passage of time. As for the technique, I chose to make it from clay because it is a manual process which requires some skills from the maker and involves his body and his senses. Obviously, the paprika can't be compared to the 'existing environment', but the process of making a replica can teach the same lessons and exude analogous ideas. While making the replicas from the paprika I took field notes which shaped my interpretation of what is actually a replica, also in relation to my work, and how is related to the original from which is produced. Another replicating process of another object could be equally fruitful or could possibly lead to different observations; however, the paprika with its limitations and challenges triggered many and various realizations.
By replicating the paprika I realized that a replica is a 'paradoxical copy'. It opposes itself, as it aims to accurately copy certain aspects of an entity while at the same time completely ignoring others. Furthermore, the replica is usually used to copy only the features associated with the appearance. The reason for this is that appearance outweighs other characteristics, just as sight outweighs other senses. Appearance is also what defines us first. The paprika's replica is made to look exactly like the real but not to sound like it, to weigh the same or to taste the same. In fact, it is doubtful whether we would describe something that mimics other features of the original other than its appearance as a copy.
On the other hand, even when a copy has the characteristics explained above, therefore, it only copies some of the aspects of the original, it is still not certain whether we should call it a replica. For example, the children's toys. Fake machines, fake food or fake money, they look like real only in appearance. Are they replica's or we should better define them as representations? The same question raises again. What distinguises the replica from its synonyms?
they pretend to be real while they are not. They are replicas of adult's things. .
However, a copy is not defined as a replica solely because of its form and properties but also becauseof its purpose of use.
An entity is not defined as a replica or as a copy or as a reprodaction just because it resembles something that existed before, this property is common to all the above. Τheir noticeable differences lie in the way they are used and in their relation to the 'original'. As the paprika wouldn't make the best example here due to its biological nature let's think of a wooden table.
Imagine this old wooden table; handcrafted by a young artisan in Utrecht. When the artisan completed the table he was very proud of it; it was his masterpiece. Everything, from the design till the last detail was perfectly executed, exactly as he had imagined it. He was sure that the table would be immediately sold so he decided to make another one straight away. He repeated the same steps and used the same tools but his excitment was so big that he rushed to finish it and the edges weren't the same smooth with the previous one. Also the piece of wood he used was slightly lighter. In the end though he had a good copy of his masterpiece. He wasn't sure about selling or not the first table but he wanted to save every detail about its making process and the design so that he wouldn't forget and he could review it in the future and make more copies. He sit down and made a detailed design, kept notes and also took a photo of it for documentation. The artisan eventually sold many copies of that table but he kept the first one for his own. It became the family's dinning table where they celebrated birthdays and Christmas dinners. It was an integral part of family gatherings for years, but at some point the artisan's business went bankrupt and he had to sell it along with his house. As for the designs of the table, they were once found in a second-hand shop by a furniture designer. He bought them for a very cheap price and studied them carefully. He had this great idea to make a reproduction of the table and thus he followed all the instructions that he found in the artisan's notes. Before starting the reproduction of the table he made a representation of it, a scaled model which he showed to his boss. His boss was excited with the idea and started immediately the (re)production. The vintage design of the table was popular only with a few customers while most preferred more minimal lines and less decoration. Then the furniture company decided to make another version of the table without decorative elements that would better suit the current fashion trends. This new version immediately sold out in contrast to the original design which were left in their warehouse for a long time and it was finally sold in vintage stores. Some years later, the daughter of the first artisan saw one of the reproduced tables in a shopping window and immediately recognized it. The table looked old and used, she was sure that this was the dinning table of her family as she wasn't aware of what had actually happened and her child memories were blurry. She explained to the shop owner her story and how important was for her to take it back in any cost. The shop owner found a great opportunity to raise the price of a table that no one wanted to buy and hid the truth. The daugther went home with the replica.
In this story the wooden table was copied over and over again and each time it was defined as something different. The boundaries of these definitions are blurry and difficult to seperate. In the end of the story the same copied wooden table was a reproduction which was later named 'replica'. The table never physically changed, what changed was the way it was perceived and the way it was intended to be perceived. In this intention there was the element of deception.
In my research a replica is an entity that pretends to be something which is not. Sometimes as in the case of the paprika's replica, an object is created as a replica, therefore with a deceptive intention and sometimes the object is used as a replica, as in the case of the wooden table. In the first case the deceptive intetnion also applies to the physical characteristics of the object. The paprika's replica was created with the intention to look like a paprika while it was a piece of clay. When I use as a replica a scaled model, the object itself is a representation of an actual space while the way I use it makes it a replica.
In the end a replica is not only a paradoxical copy or a fake copy but an entity which pretends to be something that it is not. This intention to trick the spectator is the key that distinguishes it from a representation or a reproduction. It is all about the awareness of the spectator. In my practice, I use to copy the existing environment and play with the copies and the spectator. Sometimes the copies work as representations and it is the case when the spectator is aware of their fakeness and sometimes the copies become replicas, they completely mislead him to believe that they are original. The most interesting to me though is this shifting moment, when my aparatuses change definitions and how that applies to the spectator.
I am thinking of replicas and I see them eveywhere.(Jean Baudrillard quote)
I am thinking of what a replica is.. I have this need to define it.
A replica is a copy of something that exists or existed. But the most important is what destinguises the replica from the original object.
The replica is a contradiction. It is very accurate according to some aspects and not accurate at all according to others and this is the most important element that defines it. A replica is a deceptive object because of this capacity.
I am searching about it and I end up reading this book called "Discrete-event System Stimulation" it is a very technical book talking about stimulation principles and applications in manufacturing, services and computing. It has nothing to do with scenography, theatre or even phylosophy. But suddenly I realize that the definition of stimulation that gives in the introduction is discribing some how my work.
"A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Whether done by hand or on a computer, simulation involves the generation of artificial history of a system and the observation of that artificial history to draw inferences concerning the operating characteristics of the real system.
The behavior of a system as it evolves over time is studied by developing a simulation model. This model usually takes the form of a set of assumptions concerning the operation of the system. These assumptions are expressed in mathematical, logical and symbolic relationships between the entities, or objects of interest, of the system. Once developed and validated, a model can be used to investigate a wide variety of "what if" questions about the real-world system. Potential changes to the system can first be simulated, in order to predict their impact on systems are built.... From the simulation, data are collected as if a real system were being observed. This simulation-generated data is used to estimate the measures of performance of the system.
Video tutorial explaning Baudrillard
What if our societies today; our postmodern, fragmented, advanced capitalist, media driven societies.
What if we similarly live everyday in a world that we accept to be reality that prevents us to see the world as it actually is. What if our simulation isn't housed in computer hardwear, what if it's all around us.
Remember, a simulation is an immitation of a real world process or system over time. What if in this post modern society practically everything about how people see their lives is seen to the links of a complex network of signs and symbols given by media and the people around them and then for the last several hundreds of years these signs and symbols that were originally used to directly represent something in the real world have slowly evolved from representing reality to then a media created copy of reality, to then represent a copy of a copy of reality, a copy of that copy, all the way to the point where the signs and symbols no longer ressemble anything about reality.
Wikipedia
A replica is an exact copy or reproduction.
A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance.
An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps.
Sometimes the original never existed.
Replicas and reproductions can be related to any form of licensing an image for others to use, whether it is through photos, postcards, prints, miniature or full size copies they represent a resemblance of the original object.
However, replicas have often been used illegally for forgery and counterfeits, especially of money and coins, but also commercial merchandise such as designer label clothing, luxury bags and accessories, and luxury watches.
Replicas and their original representation can be seen as fake or real depending on the viewer.
Good replicas take much education related to understanding all the processes and history that go behind the culture and the original creation.
To create a good and authentic replica of an object, there is to be a skilled artisan or forger to create the same authentic experience that the original object provides.
Authenticity or real feeling presented by an object can be “described as the experience of an ‘aura’ of an original.” An aura of an object is what an object represents through its previous history and experience.
Replicas work well when they have the ability to look so real and accurate that people can feel the authentic feelings that they are supposed to get from the originals. Through the context and experience that a replica can provide, people can be fooled into seeing it as ‘original’.
The authenticity of a replica is important for the impression it gives off to observers.
Authenticity has a way of also being represented in what the public expects in a predictable manner or based on stereotypes.
Lacan: The Real "must, once again, be apprehended in its experience of rupture, between perception and consciousness"
From "Narrative as Virtual Reality":
The philosophy of Baudrillard presents itself as a meditation on the status of the image in a society addicted to "the duplication of the real by means of tehnology" (Poster, "theorizing" p.42). Once, the power to automatically capture and duplicate the world was the sole priviledge of the mirror; now this power has been emulated by technological media - photography, movies, audio recordings, television and computers - and the world is being filled by representations that share the virtuality of the specular image. The general tone and content of Baudrillard's meditation on this state of affairs are given by the epigraph to his most famous essay, "The Precession of Simulacra", a quotation attributed to Ecclesiastes that is nowhere to be found in the Bible (hence, evidently, the lak of reference to a verse number). True to its message and subject matter, the essay thus open with a simulacrum:
"The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true" . A simulacrum, for Baudrillard, is not the dynamic image of an active process, as are computer simulations, but a mechanically produced and therefore passively obtained duplication whose only function is to pass as that which it is not: "To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have". Baudrillard envisions contemporary culture as a fatal attraction toward simulacra. This "will to virtuality", to borrow Arthur Kroker and Michael Weistein's evocative term (Data Trash, chap.3), precludes any dialectical relation and back and forth movement between the real and its image. Once we break the second commandment, "Thou shalt not make images", we are caught in the gravitational pull of the fake, and the substance of the real is sucked out by the virtual, for as Baudrillard writes in The Perfect Crime, "There is no place for both the world and its doubles"(34). In the absence of any Other, the virtual takes the place of the real and becomes the hyperreal. In Baudrillard's grandiose evolutionary scheme, we have reached the stage four in the image:
it is the reflection of a profound reality;
it masks and denatures a profound reality;
it masks the absence of a profound reality;
it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum.
Does the seemingly inevitable historical evolution from stage one to stage four represent a fall into inauthenticity, an abdication of representational responsibility, and a cynical betrayal of the Real, or, on the contrary, a gradual discovery of the True Nature of the image? Has the culture of illusion committed a "perfect crime" that killed reality without leaving traces, as Baudrillard suggests in the latter book by that tittle, or has it definitively slain illusion of the real and reached the ultimate semiotic wisdom?
About replication:
Baudrillard , Simulation and Simulacra
p.3
To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending: "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms"
p.6
Representation stems from the principle of the equivalence of the sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is utopian, it is a fundamentl axiom). Simulation, on the contrary, stems from the utopia of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value, from the sign as the reversion and death sentence of every reference. Whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by interpretting it as a false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation itself as a simulacrum.
Such would be the successive phases of the image:
it is the reflection of a profound reality;
it masks and denatures a profound reality;
it masks the absence of a profound reality;
it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its pure simulacrum.
In the first case, the image is a good appearance - representation is of sacramental order. In the second, it is an evil appearance - it is of the order of maleficence. In the third, it plays at being an appearance - it is of the order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer of the order of appearances, but of simulation.
The transition from signs that dissimulate something to signs that dissimulate that there is nothing marks a decisive turning point. The first reflects a theology of truth and secrecy (to which the notion of ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates the era of simulacra and of simulation, in which there is no longer a god to recognize his own, no longer a Last Judgment to seperate the false from the true, the real from its artificial resurrection, as everything is already dead and resurrected in advance.
When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a plethora of myths of origin and of signs of reality - a plethora of thruth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity. Escalation of the true, of lived experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. Panic - stricken production of the real and of the referential, parallel to and greater than the panic of material production: this is how simulation appears in the phase that concerns us - a strategy of the real, of the neoreal and the hyperreal that everywhere is the double of a strategy of derterrence.
p.79
We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.
Practices of looking : an introduction to visual culture
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright
Representation refers to the use of language and images to create meaning about the world around us. We use words to understand, describe, and define the world as we see it, and we also use images to do this.
...
Throughout history, debates about representation have considered whether these systems of representation reflect the world as it is, such that they mirror it back to us as a form of mimesis or imitation, or whether in fact we construct the world and its meaning through the system of representation we deploy. In this social constructionist approach, we only make meaning of the material world through specific cultutral contexts. This takes place in part through the language systems (be they writing, speech, or images) that we use. Hence, the material world only has meaning, and only can be "seen" by us, through these systems of representation. This means that the world is not simply reflected back to us through systems of representation, but that we actually construct the meaning of the material world through these systems.
...
Language and systems of representation do not reflect an already existing reality so much as they organize, construct, and mediate our understanding of reality, emotion, and imagination.
In this painting, Surrealist painter Rene Magritte comments upon the process of representation. Entitled The Treachery of Images (1928-29), the painting depicts a pipe with the line in French, "This is not a pipe". One could argue, on the one hand, that Magritte is making a joke, that of course it is an image of a pipe that he has created. However, he is also pointing to the representation of a pipe; it is a painting rather than the material object itself. Philosopher Michel Foucault elaborates these ideas in a short text about this painting and a drawing by Magritte that preceded it. Not only does he address the painting's implied commentary about the relationship between words and things, he also considers the complex relationship among the drawing, the painting, their words, and their referent (the pipe). One could not pick up and smoke this pipe. So, Magritte can be seen to be warning the viewer not to mistake the image for the real thing. He marks the very act of naming, drawing our attention to the word "pipe" itself, and its function in representing the object. Both the word "pipe" and the image of the pipe represent the material object pipe, and in pointing this out, Magritte asks us to consider how they produce meaning about it. Thus, when we stop and examine the process of representation, as Magritte asks us to do, a process tha we normally take for granted, we can see the complexity of how words and images produce meaning in our world.
p.35
...the value of the original resultsnot only from its uniqueness but from its being the source from which reproductions are made. The manifacturers who produce art reproductions and the consumers who purchase and display these items give value to the work of art by making it available to many people as an item of popular culture.
p.123
...with the rise of reproduction, these practices (making replicas by hand) disappeared. Instead, a reaffirmation of the unique image, one that had more value, took place precisely at the time when that original image could be reproduced into copies by the mechanical photographic camera.
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be".
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", in illuminations, translated by Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 220.
p.134
Visual technologies and phenomenology
...
In the most general sense, phenomenology is the belief that all knowledge and truth derives from subjective human experience and not solely from things themselves.
...
Perception, memory, and imagination are key concerns of phenomenological approaches to cultural analysis. In using phenomenology to examine visual media, we focus on the specific capacities of each medium that distinguish its properties, and effect of these properties on our experience of the images produced in each.