Virtualization Of Reality

In another attempt to question the viewer’s depiction of reality and fantasy, Laurie Simmons created her photographic installation called Two Boys. She took the ideas of the immaterial, specifically focusing on the virtual, and created a version of reality that shows that life only exists inside this digital space, and all that is left of a person outside of the space is a hollow shell. About her piece, William J. Simmons, an art theory PhD candidate states,“ [it] presents not only a vision of the internal and communal traumas of the internet age”. In a digital era, labor nor blindspots can be easily found, giving the illusion of a space where all is open, accessible, and truly realistic. Therefore, people are able to create their fantasy ideas, …show more content…
In Boris Groys’ Marx After Duchamp, he elaborates on this notion that today, almost everything that was material is now “immaterial”. The idea of the immaterial alludes to the point that art is reaching a state where no matter how it is created, there is more conceptual than laborious qualities in the work. In making this the new reality, artists are expected to follow this trend. When they do, the viewers are then asked to mold their perceptions of art to fit this new immateriality, allowing for the space of others’ ideas to infiltrate one’s own ideas. This relates to Groys’ idea about “immaterial creativity”. He meanings that this “immaterial creativity” is something that is greater than, and more powerful than traditional labor. Interestingly, this is because instead of just leaving a physical impact on the work that the artist creates, they are also leaving behind their own mental impacts and impressions unto their piece. Allowing an influence like this to be integrated into the piece, changes the immediate meaning of the artwork, making the whole work part of the artist’s mind that people will have to indulge themselves in, instead of taking the piece in the way that the viewer understood it. Immateriality of the actual piece develops the further ideas that in artistic situations, the artist is the person with …show more content…
In this painting, it is seen that everything that exists in one’s life is encased within oneself, and nothing really exists outside of the being. Essentially, the viewers whole world is all that there is, and if it is not part of their world, it is immaterial to them. In regards to Magritte’s work, it was stated that “illusion and reality reflects an ‘existence in two places at once and...is like the existence of an identical moment both in the past and the present’”. This relates to the idea of living in one’s fantasy reality. In attainment of a perfect reality, one has to have a fantasy in mind that acts as the goal that they are striving towards. Magritte’s A Friend of Order portrays that exact idea because it acts like the viewer is the barrier that forces the fantasy to stay inside, while reality continues on. This painting also exhibits how much power both the viewer and the artist have. However, it seems that Magritte is extending the meaning of his own power through this work. Magritte shows that everyone’s life should be as peaceful as the figure depicts. He is therefore exerting his way of thinking over the thinking of others that are viewing this piece. Essentially telling them that their priorities are not universal, because art is the true universal language, he imposes again what he thinks reality should be in comparison to the fantasy of reality that his viewers are trying to