nannon-viewing04

Spectacle is most easily recognized in works that milk the most out of current technology--it's usually flashy, engaging, easy to understand, for capital gain.

Speculation pushes the edge of understanding + technology--it is not self conscious, can also be flashy, but also confusing, uncomfortable, in the midst of coming to terms with itself.

Trimalchio, AES+F, 2010

Image result for aes+f trimalchio

AES+F is an art collective that plays a lot of faux realistic 3D through 3D modeling and photo manipulation. This particular piece, Trimalchio, was made in 2010. It's hard to categorize this as either speculation or spectacle because I think it's so much both (maybe it does reclaim spectacle into speculation). At first glance, the aesthetic is very beautiful, with many references to renaissance/greek god type imagery. But as you watch the videos, the references to all kinds of humanity + culture come out of nowhere, seamlessly blending into this utopic world. I think AES+F uses 3D in an interesting way because it's not the tip top frontier of 3D imaging, yet the blend of photo+manipulation makes it look extremely real. It's the photography that brings it out of uncanny valley, and the very intentional play with scale, imagery, and context that bring it into the weird, which I think is awesome.