Reggie Davis: SIMULACRUM
Reggie Davis: SIMULACRUM
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2m 15s
SIMULACRUM (simulacra): Something that replaces reality with its representation.
Superficial likeness without an original in reality.
It becomes self-referential, detached from any underlying truth.
In this video our digital body our online persona becomes
corrupted data. Due to viruses, biased algorithms and other malicious software.
The video construct is Real-Time Data moshing that deliberately incorporates digital errors and distortions into analog stock video, sourced and found footage, and images through techniques like pixelation, color degradation, noise, double exposure, morphing and distorting software. Clips are then layered and digitized to create a visually striking and sometimes unsettling after effects.
Video is styled after a type of 70’s B movie, known as body horror. A sub-gene of horror fiction. In this case of this video- digital body horror. Favoring psychologically disturbing violations of the human body over the purely grotesque.
These violations manifest through various means, including digital mutations, to name a few.
It explores the theme of the fear of bodily transformation and the fragility of the human form.
The graphic depictions of the human body undergoing changes, are intended to be disturbing and unsettling, still carrying an inherent aesthetic appeal. Aiding this is the , glitch music soundtrack. Glitch is a genre of experimental music that emerged in the 1990s, which is known by the deliberate use of glitches in audio media and other sonic artifacts.In the creation of unusual textural elements.
Digital horror explores the anxieties surrounding technological augmentation and its potential impact on the dehumanization of the human body. It isn’t about the human body being destroyed. Rather, it's about it being transformed into something grotesque. Through a surreal, sci-fi, or supernatural mutating of the biological into something that would be impossible in real life..
This is one in a series of videos focusing on human transformations, (physical, psychological, spiritual) invoking deep-rooted fears and fascinations. Served with a side of social commentary. A mirror on our collective anxieties about the body, identity, and the unknown.
Other topics include
:
Digital inculturation, algorithmic bias. The digital social construction of women relative to the digital social construction of men in relation to and critique of:
Virtual violence.
Virtual racism.
Virtual Social and cultural constructs.
Digital aesthetics, and cultural bias in relation to body morphology beauty, image and error.
Video takes a critical stance against the flawless digital utopias touted by new media. And the potential devastating effect of algorithmic uncertainty