Is it real or is it…Manchester Cathedral?
The BBC reports outrage from the Church of England: Sony used a simulation apparently based on Manchester cathedral as a setting for a shootout in a violent videogame. In my opinion, this marks a watershed in the public, and possibly in the legal understanding of virtualities. While some would hold that any attention, whether positive or negative, is good advertising, the Church’s demand that the game be recalled from sale indicates the losses that will be at stake.
Usually, moviemakers seek a “location release” in advance for any place they film, just like the similar “person release” for anyone who is recognizeable in their footage.
Sony’s defense that the cathedral is simulated, not directly filmed, relies on notions that the virtual is somehow “unreal”. The law is unclear, but many people will immediately recognize that the reality of virtual places and of other simulations is exactly why they are successful. The virtual is “real but not actual” in the immortal words of the novelist, Marcel Proust. A simulation is more than just fiction - it stands in as good as reality. Splitting hairs on this point… misses the point.
What does this mean for other simulations of places? What places does one ask permission for? If a church is inappropriate, what about a city park? Governments have worried about the security implications of satellite images accessible from the web, but could a Google Earth allow access into a cloistered community of nuns, for example? What control do individuals and communities have over how places are experienced - both materially and virtually, and therefore how they are understood and remembered?
There are also implications for debates on terrorism, as computer games generally dramatize violent assaults not just on people but on places and groups of people in famous places in exciting ways.
More on this as we get our head around the vast implications for videogame design and more broadly, for the way we as a global society treat the virtual.
June 10th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
As is the urban to the city for Lefebvre, we can say the ‘representation’, ‘citation’, or ‘appropriation’ of the cathedral is to the building itself.
Thus as you once wrote “Actualization is a matter of performativity.” And if– “The virtual has been described as a code, a program” perhaps what is at stake will be seen in terms (reductive) of property, copyright of the code of the cathedral.
I agree with Proust, and I think that currently individuals and communities have little if any control over how places are experienced outside of the direct contact with said place. If appropriations of the ‘codes’ of places are abused, as the cathedral is in the opinion of the Church, then this becomes a huge policy issue. Just a thought! (or 2)
cc
June 11th, 2007 at 2:15 am
On a rather more prosaic point - it interests me that your image of the actual Manchester Cathedral has a degree of soft focus blurriness, which contrasts with the sharp realism of the simulation (presumably a function of the control of images) - this suggests that for some the basis of reality might already have shifted …
Manchester’s regeneration is generally an interesting case in the disconnection between contemporary image and place. And, of course, there is the art historical reference to Brunelleschi’s demonstration of constructed perspective in Florence Cathedral. As I type this the radio is announcing that Manchester Cathedral is requesting a substantial donation from Sony - this could run and run.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Very impressive!
June 11th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Well, if you type in our address in Google Earth you will see our cloistered garden although I happen to know that the image is about 3 years old!
I looked hard but I couldn’t see anyone waving!