[Field-Homework 3] Simulated City

Simulated city
Directed by Yanisha Chung

Simulacra and Simulation is a philosophical treatise written by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard and published in 1981. It is concerned with the role that images play in contemporary society and the way reality is mediated by these images. Baudrillard introduces the concept of Simulacra as a representation or copy of an original entity that has been detached from the original to become a false and perverted simulation of reality. He argues that our society is dominated by simulacra and as a result created a hyperreal world that is more real than reality itself. He describes a great empire which as its territory expanded devised a map which was so precise that it becomes confused with the actual geography it was only meant to represent— the map had become the empire.

Hong Kong is infested with simulacra. Our industrial metropolis has tendencies to monetise and commodify most entities within it, whether it be cultural products like art, literature, film and architecture or living beings like animals and humans, nothing is exempted from objectification. This leads to a distorted and perverted perception of the city, a perception that we then accept as reality.

My film explores this concept by capturing how reflections simulate spaces in Hong Kong, hence the title Simulated City. As the boundaries between real and reflected spaces begin to blur, confusion of how to distinguish the real self arises. The search begins at a large scale with the facade of skyscrapers and buildings, then slowly transitions to the streets and confined spaces and finally reaches the true self at the end. A wide range of spaces are depicted to heighten the confusion and frustration our city provokes, these are all spaces of our everyday life but they begin to morph into something unrecognisable as simulacra pervades within them.

The use of black and white throughout the film is used to place reality and reflections on the same plane, without colour depth is eradicated and it becomes disorientating to distinguish. The journey the film takes us on mimics its process of creation. The opening scene of skyscrapers was the first shot taken. The camera captures only a part of these towering glassy blocks from below, the audience cannot see buildings in their entirety so it becomes difficult to differentiate between the physical buildings and reflections. The visual imagery is overwhelming as the buildings consume the whole frame leaving little positive space evoking a claustrophobic and suffocating feeling that the city often promotes.

The following scenes focus on one building in their respective sites. Because of the reflective windows in these structures, it becomes difficult to tell which imagery is outside and which is inside leading the boundaries between public and private spaces to dissipate. The two scenes at 0:22-00:36 are structured in a similar manner: it starts with a wide shot of the building and then cuts to a close-up. This mirrors the act of searching, getting closer and closer. But as the audience observes, the reflections only get clearer the closer they get, and hence confusion persists.

Next, we turn to scenes on the street. The streets in Hong Kong are compact and busy making for a dizzying experience, the scene at 00:39-00:43 best captures this feeling. Windows, cars and shops all meet at a single corner, all these scenes overlap on one glass surface, and perspective lines intersecting in multiple different directions warps the audience’s perception of space. There is no certainty of what is in the foreground and what is in the background whilst lights flicker and cars drive by.

The film transitions into moving spaces during the next three scenes: MTR and escalators. Here the real moving mechanism itself is never shown: the interior of the MTR and the escalators are all shown through its reflection or simulation. These three scenes are also framed to only reveal a small part of the space to make them almost unrecognisable to audiences. The movement in contrast to the previous static scenes conveys a sense of urgency, an urgency to search, which prompts the last part of the film.

From 1:33-2:14, the search has finally reached the smallest scale and a character enters. We first see her through a window frame but she is only depicted in the left corner of the frame, cast in the shadows. We then observe her reflection walking through three different locations and after, her gazing out the window. Throughout the journey of her search, neither her real physical self nor her face can be seen, so as she searches so does the audience. At 2:09 her face is revealed but only as a simulacra as she stares hopelessly out the window and the next cut immediately cuts to her “real” self staring into the camera with a blank expression but still in black and white. Her expression prompts audiences to question whether this self is actually real. Perhaps we are still trapped in the hyperreal, unable to tell what is real and what is fake as simulacra slowly becomes our reality. The screen then cuts to black and the audience face their own reflection.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. Glaser, Trans.). University of Michigan Press.

Yanisha Chung Yan Yu 3035977733