Hyper-realism
and the fiction of the real
‘Realism’ can be
understood as both a movement in art (which began in France in the
1850s) and more broadly, as a style of representation. In its
broadest application, realism refers to works that show ‘reality’,
that is, what is believed to exist. This conception of reality rests
upon the idea that what is real is discovered through the senses
(sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) and as independent of
representation (in art and literature and theatre etc.) So realism as
expressed through the arts can be said to support that experience of
reality and to reinforce it.
Realism has a strong
connection to ‘truth’ and the art historical idea of ‘truth to
nature’. Typically, realist art addresses everyday subjects and
readily observable situations. It is grounded in the idea of the
faithful representation (that shows things as they are) and committed
to the idea of an objective reality. The popularity of 19th
Century Realism coincided with the invention of photography and its
claim to ever more precise and objective representation as enabled by
the camera.
While realism as a
style of representation has persisted across the arts to the present
day, there have been major challenges to the idea of reality that it
relies upon, and consequently in the art that addresses that concept.
This is particularly pronounced in art from the 1990s when the
widespread application of computers in image making came about. These
new image technologies disrupted earlier conceptions of the real and
faith in images based in realism. Not surprisingly, photography and
screen-based art has had a major role to play in this reassessment of
realism. The paired concepts of simulacra and simulation, as
developed by theorist Jean Baudrillard, have been influential in
shaping debates around these issues. Baudrillard argues that we have
moved from the representation of reality to its simulation, to the
hyper-real, something beyond and outside of reality.
1. Realism as a 19th
C movement in art committed to objectivity over emotion, a major
disruption in art at the time
2. Realism as a
style of representation connected to ‘truth’, truth to nature,
objectivity
3. Realism typically
addresses familiar, everyday scenes but also harsh truths
4. 20th C
image technology sees a major challenge to concepts of the real that
question the possibility of reality
5. Photography and
screen-based art central to exploration of objectivity and realism
6. Hyperrealism
exceeds the realism of photo realism and refuses simple relations
between images and what they represent
7. Sculpture takes
camera-computer based technologies into even more pronounced
hyperrealism and increasingly complex questions of what is real and
what is simulated
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