I guess this could have just been a shower thought as well…
Well, if ye think about it from a perspective of recording things
Most of our ancestors may have been able to look at things as it is, according to their eyes, but they’ve never seen it recorded in photos and videos, let alone in color or good quality, until these relatively recent centuries that we now live in…
It gives a new perspective to the world around us, beyond our eyes, and is probably the closest we’d ever get from literally looking at someone else’s point of view…
Comparison mostly. HD and 3D isn’t impressing you by virtue of it being superior to real life (it isn’t after all), it’s impressing you compared to other examples of the same thing done “worse”. The best portrait artist in the world can not make something look more “real” than the reference material, but it can compared to other attempts at painting.
This is true in other natural things as well. For example, a really big tree surrounded by smaller similar sized trees feels “really impressive” compared to a mountain surrounded by other… similar sized mountains. Or why a particularly colorful plant seems impressive surrounded by a bunch of green and brown plants.
On the other hand, things like OLED screens can be impressive compared to the natural world due to their ability to arrange and display colors rarely found in nature.
You know the film 300? If you ever play it with the saturation way waay down, it looks mundane as hell. Just a bunch of guys without shirts walking around.
That’s funny, I’ll have to try it. I always wondered what Frank Miller did to achieve those weird camera effects he gets in Sin City and 300
In a game, movie, work of literature or theater, your feeling of awe and immersion is maintained by something called the “magic circle”. It is an area of experience that is separated from normal reality by the proverbial 4th wall.
Everything inside the magic circle is filled with artistic purpose, it works (in good works) to drive meaning and communicate themes and ideas of the art work.
Whenever this magic circle is broken, you suspension of disbelief becomes overtaken by cynicism, and the immersion is gone.
Mundane life is full of this cynicism, because we are not conditioned (anymore) to find mundane reality purposeful, outside of really outstanding and dire situations. We take reality with it’s amazing graphics and narrative for granted, not noticing the magic.
Because that’s comparing oranges to apples.
In terms of pure image quality, real objects would win every time because they only have to be filtered by our eyes - digital images are filtered through the GPU and screen before ever reaching our eyes.
As such, the real contest is the ability of displays to make digital images look comparable to those real objects - because that’s harder to do vs. ust looking at the real life object, it’s more impressive to us.
Speak for yourself, I think reality is fucking gorgeous. That’s why people try so hard to evoke its appearance in the first place, not only on screen but on canvas and in sculpture and prose.
That’s why my favorite art isn’t realistic at all; if I wanted to see the most beautiful realism around, I could just walk to a lake.
During the third or fourth time I was mad that 3D hadn’t taken off like technicolor, I though “fine! I’ll just look at trees and hallways in real life then!” And yeah, it kinda works.
There’s a lot of beauty in the world if you just, you know, look at it.
Color saturation
Modern people lack an appreciation for the beauty of existence and the physical world. The most intricate and aesthetically pleasing creative achievements of the human race pale in comparison to the inherent beauty of nature.
Artistic expression is inherent to being human. Our creative achievements are part of the beauty of nature. A painting that can make you smile, a story that can make you laugh, a song that can make you cry, that’s all nature, and it is beautiful. If you haven’t found something that speaks to you yet, I hope you’ll keep looking
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate art more than most. But there’s an exclusionary aspect that exists with art, wherein only some people can truly appreciate various aspects.
In contrast, nature is more universal and primal. Everyone, regardless of language or culture or education, can appreciate natural phenomena. The beauty of nature speaks to us on a fundamental level, whereas the beauty of art requires a certain degree of acculturation and intellectual effort to grasp.
Furthermore, human art is a reflection of nature and indeed a part of the beauty of nature, as you say. However, that inevitably positions it as a subset of the all encompassing beauty of existence as a whole. Artistic works are small mirrors reflecting back aspects of reality in interesting ways. But because they can only ever represent fragments of the greater whole, they are somewhat less awe inspiring.
Often, works of art can prompt us to engage with the beauty of reality, so I’m not condemning them in any way. I’m just saying that the representation can’t be better than the real thing, even if humans wish that it were.
But it’s hard to argue that they could exceed the beauty of the thing that they reflect.
Only if you’re looking for objective value of paint on a canvas, or words on a page. What I think is beautiful about art is the way it makes people feel, and the complexity of the human context that allows that. Just this week, a story caused my fiancée to have a breakthrough in her CPTSD therapy. That’s a unique kind of beauty
Indeed, I agree with you on that.
Nah, thanks to piracy everyone can watch TV and movies for free. If you’re a poor person who grew up in the city nature is a lot less accessible.
Nah, Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is better than nature.
Novelty is a natural part of human experience. The only way we can exist is if things are not as incredibly mind bending as the first time you see them.
We perceive reality from the moment we open our eyes upon being born. By the time you comprehend what reality is, it’s old hat. This happens to everything, from the first time you see a good movie, to the first time you drive a car on the freeway, eventually everything that we do repeatedly loses its novelty so that the human mind isn’t constantly blown by all the crazy shit going on.
Because it’s art.
There is a lot of skill and artistic talent needed to create a facsimile of real life. Anyone can draw a tree, but a realistic tree takes some amount of artistic knowledge. The more realistic the more talent that the artist shows. Similarly, when the artist deviates from recreating real life it shows an artistic vision beyond reality.
We like art because it shows a different perspective from the minds eye of the artist. And when the artist can render that vision as something that looks real, even if it couldn’t really exist, it is impressive.
I guess you’re not taking the time to appreciate the beauty of the real world?
Where I live, it’s all very beautiful. I’ve not had the experience you’re describing, where the detail of the world is mundane.
I feel like it’s the perspective that matters? Yes, we go through life seeing “higher resolution” in real life, but recreating this through pixels on a screen is a different medium. Going even further, if we take the next step and look at VR, suddenly we have real life competing with something that was previously unable to be experienced (more than once, at least.). Like, you can get a lightweight experience of what it’s like to fall off of a tall building. We can do it in real life. We can do it in a 2D/3D game. And we can do it in VR. The “real” feelings we get of this happening in reality aren’t quite the same as they are in VR, although it comes close, and likewise aren’t the same in monitor gaming, but again can come close. Our brains are interesting that way. My stomach is able to drop when falling from tall heights in games, despite in real life not actually being falling, or even moving in the slightest.
So I think it comes down to it being the medium and what it’s presented with.
Have you ever looked at a flower? There’s colors that I just don’t see on screens.
Lighting
Because we are on autopilot. We don’t concentrate on what we were born with. It’s a part of us. There is actually a word for it that I can’t remember. You don’t look at everything on your way to work. You just get there and don’t even think about it.
