“The first question for me is what is a simulation? Simulation is not a symbolisation or a representation. It is a sandbox of reality’s dynamic processes, or like reality’s gym. Writers simulate a thousand forking worlds on the draft page. Boeing simulates new aerodynamic designs in a subzero wind hangar. Athletes simulate low oxygen conditions and new diets training. We simulate with friends what to say to haters, what to say to lovers. It is a private game we devise when the aliveness of a situation is too complex to really know. It is a drafting reality through an ocean of forking behaviours to find an optimal end”

Ian Cheng

“The real is produced from miniaturised units, from matrices, memory banks and command models – and with these it can be reproduced in an indefinite number of times. It no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance. It is nothing more than operational. In fact, since it is no longer enveloped by an imaginary, it is no longer real at all. It is a hyperreal, the product of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere.”  

Jean Baudrillard