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surtualism - Eight Theses on Surtualism
1. In it being a synthesis of surrealist tradition and virtual promise, “surtualism” belongs to the order of simulation in which the division between “the true and the false, the real and the imaginary” (Baudrillard) is suspended.
2. Surrealism was the visionary anticipation of virtuality and of simulation.
3. The aim of the modern is the disenchantment of the world. The aim of surtualism (as was the aim of surrealism) is its enchantment.
4. The dream of the twentieth century was to see that which no man had ever seen before. The dream of the
twenty-first century is to create that which no man has ever created before.
5. Digital technologies are based on the power of codes; they have a demiurgic and not a manipulative quality.
6. The digital artist does not reproduce reality, he recreates it. Surtual digital photography is correspondingly non-reproducing anti-photography.
7. In the order of simulation the only thing that is real for the subject is his own flesh and blood. The deconstruction of its reproduction is, as it were, the ‘natural’ starting point for the creation of surtualist worlds.
8. As the dichotomy between what is true and what is false is done away with, all interpretations of surtualist worlds are able to be simultaneously true and false. This also applies to these theses.
Kytom L. (2001/2005), German original at http://www.kytoml.de