SIMULATIONS: ACTUAL +

VIRTUAL WORLDS
BIG QUESTIONS
How does simulation operate in our daily life?
How do simulations shape our interactions in the world?
How might we incorporate simulations in our Com. Tech. program?

WHAT IS A SIMULATION?
Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world
process or system over time.

J. Banks, J. Carson, B. Nelson, D. Nicol (2001). Discrete-Event System Simulation. Prentice Hall. p. 3.

HOW DOES SIMULATION OPERATE IN OUR DAILY

LIFE?

Make a list of the different simulations you encounter within a day.

THINK about it.

HOW DO SIMULATIONS SHAPE OUR INTERACTION

IN THE WORLD? WHAT DO SIMULATIONS DO?
Think about issues of representation, seeing, communication and subjectivity
(how we understand ourselves in relation to the world).

BAUDRILLARD HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT IT:

What has happened in postmodern

culture is that our society has
become so reliant on models and
maps that we have lost all contact
with the real world that preceded
this map. Reality itself has begun
merely to imitate the model, which
now precedes and determines the
real world.

HYPERREALITY
The slippage of reality, its elusiveness encountered even in a basic search for a
definition, is an element of the hyperreal -- a condition in which the distinction
between the real and the imaginary implodes.

In this postmodern media-laden condition, we experience something called the

death of the real: we live our lives in the realm of hyperreality, connecting more
and more deeply to things like television sitcoms, music videos, virtual reality
games, or Disneyland, things that merely simulate reality.

HOW MIGHT WE
INCORPORATE
SIMULATIONS IN OUR COM.
TECH. PROGRAM?

Modelling technology & process

Social, role play, communication

Planning & Design purposes

Low risk, high replay opportunities