Fotograf Magazine

Photographic Image as (non)-Art and the Limits of Artificial Worlds

The author of the present essay is less than happy with the term artificial world – which, in the absence of meticulous philosophical analysis, makes little sense. For how meaningful is it to introduce the term artificial world at all? Does not the very notion of an artificial world imply that there must be some real, non-artificial world clearly distinguishable from these other, artificial worlds? And if such a non-artificial or real world does not exist, why then should one world be more or less artificial than another? Should not we then rather say that our life takes place in a multitude of possible worlds, and the world as such can be – more than anything – interpreted as a sort of dynamic and ever-changing structure, or a process of structuring, made up of a web of various alternative versions of all imaginable worlds? And if we there is indeed something we call reality, is that not just another version of the world, the reality of which lies simply in the fact that it is shared by the majority at the moment, who proclaim it to be the sole truth, something we imitate, abandon, amend and ultimately revisit as a solid frame of reference?

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#23 artificial worlds

#23 artificial worlds

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