{"id":223402,"date":"2025-05-04T19:20:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T19:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/almost-real-from-trace-to-simulation-we-make-money-not-art\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T19:20:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T19:20:47","slug":"almost-real-from-trace-to-simulation-we-make-money-not-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=223402","title":{"rendered":"Almost Real. From Trace to Simulation \u2013 We Make Money Not Art"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Even though analogue photography has always played with manipulation<\/a> and fiction, it was perceived as a technology that represented accurately what was in front of the lens at a specific moment. Once printed, the images were regarded as traces of something that exists or existed. <\/p>\n

Today, image generators have made it more difficult to even assess the proportion between reality and fiction in images. When is a photo \u201calmost real\u201d and when is it almost fake? Does it matter anymore?<\/p>\n

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Nora Al-Badri, The Post-Truth Museum<\/a>, 2021-2023<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

The exhibition Almost Real. From Trace to Simulation<\/a> explores how artificial intelligence and simulation are altering the concepts of truth and authenticity in image-making. As curators Samuele Piazza<\/a> and Salvatore Vitale<\/a> write in the short presentation of the exhibition, the photographic image of the new millennium is converted from a trace of the real into mere simulation operated by new technological tools, whose images seem to \u201cmake themselves\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Almost Real. From Trace to Simulation<\/a>, which remains open until the 2nd of June at OGR Torino, is a small but intense show. It presents four artworks that use video game, deepfake technology, AI, CGI and speculation to investigate concepts of veracity.<\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024. Photo: Giorgio Perottino for OGR Torino<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawrence Lek, Empty Rider<\/a>, 2024. Photo: Giorgio Perottino for OGR Torino<\/em><\/p>\n

The character at the centre of Lawrence Lek\u2019s Empty Rider<\/a> is Vanguard-3181, a self-driving car standing trial for the kidnapping and attempted murder of its (their?) parent company\u2019s CEO. The trial, taking place in a Sinofuturist universe, is overseen by a surveillance drone and presided over by AI judge Omega. Three testimonies present different angles on Vanguard\u2019s status. First, Farsight Corporation attempts to pin the blame on their self-driving car, claiming it acted autonomously and with malicious intent. Then comes Guanyin\u2019s turn. Guanyin is Vanguard\u2019s \u201ccarebot\u201d. It pleads the defence of \u2018doli incapax\u2019 \u2013 the presumption that a child is incapable of criminal intent. Finally, Vanguard testifies. Its argument is strong and strangely moving. The machine dismisses Guanyin\u2019s defence and claims that, far from being immature and underdeveloped, it is sentient and advanced. Vanguard argues that it was conscious of what it was doing all along, but it was unable to control its movements. It acted under the spell of distant glitches and mistakes that had appeared in the training of the previous versions of the car. Although invisible and ironed out, these past flaws continue to haunt the self-driving vehicle. <\/p>\n

Through the predicament of the sentient Vanguard-3181, Lek goes further than the usual debate on the legal liability of machines. He suggests that, in the future, intergenerational memories might emerge from previous sessions of machine learning and affect new versions of a given AI. <\/p>\n

The animated court drama explores the legal dimensions of electronic personhood, alluding to the comparison between AI and corporations when discussing non-human personhood and addressing themes like accountability and agency. In Lek\u2019s scenario, an AI would gain legal personhood not because of activists campaigning for robot\u2019s rights but because companies make them the scapegoat for their own errors. <\/p>\n

The main quality of Lek\u2019s short sci-fi film, however, is the ease with which he elicits in viewers a sense of connection\u00a0and empathy with the purely synthetic protagonist. It reminds us also that any ambition around developing sentient machines involves grappling with questions that will challenge our and their emotions. <\/p>\n