I Remember When the World was Thicker

By

Paul McDonnell
BES (Bachelor of Environmental Studies), University of Waterloo 1999
MArch (Master of Architecture), University of Waterloo 2001

A thesis support paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF FINE ARTS
Emily Carr University of Art & Design, 2024

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Keith Doyle for his kindness, thoughtfulness, and intelligence. As thesis
supervisor, he was instrumental in helping me find my artistic voice and then position that voice in a
larger contemporary context.

I would also like to acknowledge Peter Bussigel for acting as an internal reviewer of this thesis. His
energy, ideas, and positivity were a joy to be around.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the external reviewer Sarah Joyce, founding director and curator of
the New Media Gallery, for her generosity of time, openness, and professionalism.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 5
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 7
Glossary of Key Terms ................................................................................................................................. 10
Chapter One - Solistalgia and Defuturing ................................................................................................... 13
Chapter Two – Simulation and Simulacra ................................................................................................... 23
Chapter Three – Meditation and a Series of Studies .................................................................................. 41
Reflections ................................................................................................................................................... 61
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 64
Image List .................................................................................................................................................... 66
Appendix A – I Remember When, Exhibit Installation and Extended Stills ................................................. 67
Appendix B – Design Sketches .................................................................................................................... 80

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Fig. 1 - stills from simulation, I Remember when the World was Thicker, 2024.

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Abstract

This MFA thesis, I Remember when the World was Thicker, is an exploration in the use of
simulacra and simulation, while at the same time, it is a critique of their limits and inherent emptiness. It
is practice-based research into a slow, meditative, observational process that led to the question; how
can a mediated response to solistalgia provide some understanding of the defuturing of the natural
world that is happening all around us? Sitting within the discipline of new media, the thesis employes
projected animation to remind the viewer of a world when the trees were forests, the fish and the fisher
weren’t separate, and the moths weren’t trapped. It presents as digitally projected computer-generated
images. Principally, the work is an expression of grief for the loss of the natural world and its
replacement with the simulated. It is also an attempt to shift the viewer towards a deeper feeling of the
interconnectedness of the natural world. Although the work might look like cinema, it is not from that
tradition, as there is no lens-based record within it. It is in effect, a gallery installation that simulates a
gallery installation of three simulacra that contain the projected digital shadows of animal, insect, and
plant forms. These animations were created through research into techniques and processes that use 3D
computer and A.I. image creation, including text to image software, advanced computer animation
software, generative 3d forms, 3D printing and CNC machining, high resolution projection and projection
mapping. I Remember when the World was Thicker, contains research that fosters innovation in the use
of advanced computer software and digital projection as a method of artistic production. It is also
research into an artistic process that involves walking and seated observation and meditation as a form
of artistic inspiration and knowledge gathering.

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Fig. 2 - still from the simulacra, I Remember when the Trees were Forests, 2024.

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Introduction

The complexity and interconnection of the natural world is degrading. Degradation is the
process of something becoming worse or weaker, or something being made worse or weaker. This thesis
exists in the context of the anthropocene, the current geological age, ‘viewed as the period during which
human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.’1 We live in a time
during which once abundant species are now common, common species are now rare, and rare ones are
now gone. Living in the anthropocene brings up new and disturbing emotions. Witnessing the wanton
destruction of the natural world leaves me with feelings of grief, anger, and a general sense of loss.
Australian environmentalist Glenn Albrecht describes these types of feelings as solastalgia; a form of
emotional or existential distress caused by negatively perceived environmental change. (Albrecht)
This thesis is a reaction to these emotions. It is practice-based research into a slow, meditative,
observational process that has led to the question; how can a mediated response to solistalgia provide
some understanding of the defuturing of the natural world that is happening all around us? Entitled, I
Remember when the World was Thicker, the thesis consists of a projected digital simulation of a white
box installation of three digital simulacra whose subject matter is the defuturing of the natural world.
This thesis support paper is divided into three chapters that provide context and description of the thesis
and the artistic process used in its creation.
“Chapter One – Solastalgia and Defuturing,” expands on the environmental issues introduced
here. This chapter considers the subject of the thesis, the ‘why’ for it. It introduces the concept of the
great thinning, and the feeling of solidarity with the natural world which underpins the thesis. “Chapter

1

Google’s English dictionary: Oxford Languages, (https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en)

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Fig. 3 - still from the simulacra, I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped, 2024.

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Two – Simulation and Simularca,” documents the simulation, I Remember when the World was Thicker
(fig. 1) and its component parts; I Remember when the Trees were Forests (fig. 2), I Remember when the
Moths weren’t Trapped (fig. 3), and I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate (fig. 4). This
chapter details the discipline and medium of the thesis, the ‘what’ of it. It positions the thesis in relation
to other new media artists working with simulation and simulacra. It expands on how the above pieces
were created through practice-based research into a digital animation process that combines Blender 3D
animation software with text-to-image AI. A process that was developed to create slow meditative
projected patterns that feature shadowy moth, fir tree, fisher and fish forms; simulacra of our defutured
world moving towards us. The thesis support paper closes with “Chapter 3 – Meditation and a Series of
Studies.” This chapter details the processes used to create the thesis, the ‘how’ of it. It discusses a form
of practice-based research into an artistic process that employs walking and seated meditations. It
shows how these meditations were developed into a series of studies that include the use of projection
bombing in the urban realm and projection mapping in the studio. Finally, this paper concludes with a
summation of what has been learned and a look forward to what will come next in this line of artistic
enquiry.

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Glossary of Key Terms

Nature: When I use the term the natural world, I speak of the timeless living world that existed before
most of humanity separated ourselves from it. A world where the sum of the parts is greater than the
whole. I speak about the forests, not the trees. In previous writings I have also referred to this world as
the wild, as Oneness, and as the living patterns. However, all these expressions carry their own baggage
and can signify different ideas to different readers. As a result, this thesis support paper attempts to
employ a more neutral a term, ‘the natural world,’ to describe the place that I am speaking of.

Simulation and Simulacra: In contemporary parlance the words simulation and simulacra are used
nearly interchangeably. Simulacra has many nuanced definitions; Google’s Oxford Languages dictionary
defines it as a ‘unsatisfactory imitation or substitute.’2 Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as a
“superficial likeness or representation of something.” It defines simulation as, "to look, feel, or behave
like something. Both words come from simulare, a Latin verb meaning "to copy, represent, or feign.”3
For the purposes of this thesis support paper, the animation of the RBC art installation is considered a
simulation because it is designed to be perceived to be as true to the real as possible, to the point of
deception. Whereas the paper considers the three projected pieces as simulacra because they share
almost no resemblance to the real. They are moving patterns that contain abstracted natural forms
which are completely out of time and context.

2

Google’s English dictionary: Oxford Languages, (https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en)
Merriam Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simulacrum, accessed Feburary 8,
2024
3

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Meditative: Meditation is a way of accessing the sense of interconnectedness with the natural world
directly. The meditative approach and techniques that I employ come out of the Californian Zen
Buddhist tradition that has developed and flourished in California, since the 1950s. This tradition
emphasizes the integration of Zen practices within everyday life, which include seated and walking
meditation, mindfulness, and mindful eating. It also places importance on community, social
engagement, and social and environmental justice. The Californian Zen Buddhist tradition is open to the
integration of other spiritual traditions, such as yoga or Tibetan Buddhism, and my understanding of
meditation is heavily influenced by the writings and teachings of many other distinct but related spiritual
traditions. These include the teachings of Californian spiritual teacher Ram Dass, which are more closely
associated with the Hindu and yogic traditions. Yogis Erich Schiffmann and David Swenson. The writings
of Buddhists Jack Kornfield and Thich Nhat Hanh. It also leans heavily on the Advaita Vedanta tradition,
as accessed through the writings of British-born philosopher and writer Alan Watts and Californian
Adyashanti. Advaita Vedanta is a non-dualistic school of Hindu philosophy that emphasizes the Oneness
of all things.

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Fig. 4 - still from the simulacra, I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate, 2024.

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Chapter One - Solistalgia and Defuturing

Living in the anthropocene fills me with a profound sense of grief. Brought on by chronic and
expanding environmental crisis, this solastalgia expresses as the experience of depression, grief, anger,
chronic fatigue, despair, stress, guilt, and hopelessness. Solastalgia is the cause of this artistic research.
My desire to convey a feeling of it drives this artistic work as a form of personal catharsis, a type of
bearing witness to the grief. At the same time, I believe that many others feel like I do. I think that there
is a role for artistic work to play in the public realm, so that this sense of solastalgia can be collectively
acknowledged. Clinical psychologists Jasmine Kieft and Jem Bendell indicate that research shows that
feelings like solastalgia can have an adaptive function when they lead people to speak about it together.
Like other climate-related emotions, when processed collectively, solastalgia can lead to resilience and
growth. (Kieft, Bendell)
This growing solastalgia is most acute when it is connected to thoughts and discussions centered
on the defuturing of the natural world. Defuturing can be simply understood as the act of removing
something’s future. Anne-Marie Willis, in the article Designing Time refers to it as, ‘an historical and
ongoing process in which the futures of human and non-human collectives are taken away.’ (74) She
continues;
Defuturing happens in the context of a global economic system infused with a mythology
of progress which is nothing to do with noble ideas about curing diseases, eliminating poverty,
etc., and everything to do with gratuitous innovation, novelty, and the generation of millions of
‘solutions’ to non-problems … To defuture is to attack the duration of things that should endure,
to prolong the duration of those that shouldn’t. To defuture is to terminate the continuity of
species, to turn earth, water, and sky into toxic waste. These are the effects of defuturing, and

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Fig. 5 - digital photo documentation of projection bombing installation of Moth Projection Bombing 2, 2023.

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most significantly, they are not instantaneous, obvious or immediately visible. Defuturing is a
process happening in time. The effects seen now – melting glaciers, fire-ravaged land,
devastating floods and cyclones, lives displaced and disrupted (and that which is no longer seen –
the disappeared species) are the result of aggregated past actions. This is what is meant by ‘the
defurured future travelling towards us. (76)
In, Alterlife and Decolonial Chemical Relations, Michelle Murphy discusses, through the lens of
defuturing, the persistence of PCBs in the Great Lake watershed as a form of continual chemical violence
perpetrated by the capitalist, colonial system. Persistent chemicals enter the world and permanently
alter it, ‘life is recomposed by the molecular productions of capitalism in our own pasts and the pasts of
our ancestors, as well as into the future. It is a figure of life entangled within community, ecological,
colonial, racial, gendered, military, and infrastructural histories that have profoundly shaped the
susceptibilities and potentials of future life.’ (497)
The concept of defuturing drives the feeling of solastalgia within me. It informs the direction of
this artistic research and pushes its aesthetics. The thesis employs projected shadow as its medium,
which in turn is connected to themes of haunting and loss. In a study for I Remember when the Moths
weren’t Trapped, entitled Moth Projection Bombing 2 (fig. 5), the moths depicted in this piece are
shadows, a form of bearing witness to our degraded world. The shadow of a moth is not the moth itself
but a lesser, derivative form. The original has been lost. In this piece, I saw in the fragility and
delicateness of the moth an analogy to the fragility of the natural world. I wanted the piece to highlight
light pollution, a specific cause of the moth’s decline. It is widely understood that moths navigate by use
of the moon and confuse it with sources of artificial light, thus trapping them circling in the artificial
light, to die from predation or exhaustion. In this manner, the choice of the projected shadow material,
is directly related to the content of the piece.

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Fig. 6 – detail of still from, I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped - Study 3, 2023

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This thesis is produced in solidarity with the natural world and the plants, insects, birds, fish, and
animals that comprise it. These forms are an acknowledgment to the countless individual expressions of
life that we share this world with. Timothy Morton, in his book Humankind, Solidarity with Nonhuman
People, expresses this sense of solidarity in the term ‘Human-kindness’ of which he writes;
‘Human-kindness goes beyond tolerance … [it] entails the possibility not of refraining
from pleasure … but of allowing other beings to have pleasure. For some reason, this part of
your house is where sparrows, not you, get to have fun. You become fascinated by enhancing
and expanding nonhuman pleasure modes. In this way, vegetarianism (for example) is not about
opposing cruelty or minimizing suffering, or enhancing one’s health by returning to a more
natural way of eating, but about a pleasure mode designed to maintain or enhance the pleasure
modes of pigs or cows or sheep and so on. The point would not be to create a society where pigs
no longer existed, but one in which actually existing pigs get to enjoy themselves more, to go
about their piggy business.’ (144)
In the thesis, I am driven to express the uniqueness of individual trees, insects, and birds. To continue
with the example of I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped, I strove to voice the inherent
mothyness, of the moths. I wanted to find a way to capture their beautiful delicateness and fragility. The
heavy plumpness of their bodies compared to the thin lightness of their wings. To find a way to describe
their ephemeral nighttime existence (fig. 6).

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Fig. 7 - enlarged detail of still from MothStudy2, 2023

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The great thinning is a phrase connected to the worldwide loss in the density of insects and
smaller animal populations. This loss is so gradual that it has gone largely unnoticed. The thinning is
referenced in, The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, by Michael McCarthy, in which the author
discusses the memory of driving at night and seeing so many moths in the headlights that they looked
like a snowstorm. As McCarthy writes,
‘It’s the loss of abundance itself I mourn … people over the age of fifty can remember
springtime lapwings crying and swooping over every field, corn buntings alert on each hedge and
telegraph wire, swallow aerobatics in every farmyard and clouds of finches on the autumn
stubbles: they remember nettle beds swarming with small tortoiseshell and peacock caterpillars,
the sparking pointillist palette of the hay meadows, ditches crawling and croaking with frogs and
toads and even in the suburbs, song-bird speckled lawns and congregations of house martins in
the dashing navy-blue elegance … but most vividly of all, some of them remember the moth
snowstorm.’ (23)
This thesis is a reflection on and reaction to, similar memories that I have from my childhood in
Northern Ontario. I am a settler, the decedent of generations of settlers that labored in resource
extraction and subsistence farming along the Ottawa River. They were of French and Irish descent from
both sides of the provincial border of Ontario and Quebec, all Catholic. Growing up, I spent my summers
in a canoe paddling lakes and rivers, and winters on cross-country skis in hardwood forests. I was taught
a deep respect and love for the natural world. This thesis is a reflection on my memories of the
abundance of the natural world when it teamed with life; the flicker of glow bugs, the chorus of crickets

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Fig. 8 - still from MothRedLightStudy2 , 2023

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and frogs. The titling of the thesis, ‘I Remember when the World was Thicker,’ is a direct reference to the
gradual thinning on the natural world which I have witnessed in my lifetime, and which fills me with
sadness.
In my twenties, I worked for Greenpeace and was involved in environmental activism at large.
One of the core tenets of Greenpeace’s activism is ‘bearing witness.’ It is at the heart of Greenpeace’s
mandate. It manifests as non-violent direct action that confronts environmental degradation, head-on.
It is the moral underpinning for the climbing of oil platforms, the challenging of whaling ships, and the
blockading of petrochemical plants. It was believed that if people, through mass media, could bare
witness to the damage to the natural world, they would act to stop it. Twenty-five years later, despite
trillions of images of the wanton exploitation and depletion of the natural world, the environmental
collapse continues at breakneck speed.
Environmental activism led me to pursue a career as a professional architect to design
sustainable buildings, to do my part in helping to stop the degradation of the natural world. Over twenty
years I worked on the design of countless projects that were considered leaders in sustainable design.
As an intern architect I worked on the design of commercial office buildings that were pioneers in
developing systems of third-party assurance for sustainable design. These systems eventually coalesced
into the industry standard LEED sustainable design accreditation process. As a design architect working
for larger firms, I employed these sustainable design methods in the design of larger public buildings.
This included the design of many buildings for Kwantlen University, UBC, and the federal government;
Kwantlen Coverdale’s Trades and Technology building, UBCO’s Engineering and Management Building,
and the Peace Arch Border Crossing being notable examples. Later, as a principle in my own practice, I
worked exclusively on smaller sustainable buildings in the lower mainland and across the northern
interior of the province. Unfortunately, despite all the effort, I am left with the felling that there is little
that is truly sustainable in these complex buildings made of concrete, steel, plastic.

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Fig. 9 – [Photographic documentation of RBC media room pending March installation]
Placeholder stills above from 3D mock up of RCB Media Room installation

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Chapter Two – Simulation and Simulacra

The thesis, I Remember when the World was Thicker, consists of two nested parts. The first
piece is a simulation of an art installation in the RBC media room located on the main concourse at Emily
Carr University of Art and Design. This simulation is projected by an overhead digital projector onto the
back south wall of the room (fig. 9). It is made of 3D computer animation. Some of the elements in it
are also physically built and displayed in the room; the three plinths that the simulated projectors sit on,
along with the curtain, and the white painted plywood projection mapped prop for the simulacra, I
Remember when the Trees were Forests. This results in the creation of a simulation of the very room
that the simulation is shown in. The second part of the thesis is the virtual art installation itself. This
installation consists of three digitally projected simulacra in the RBC room, one projected onto the east
wall entitled I Remember when the Trees were Forests (fig. 10), one projected onto the back south wall
entitled I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped (fig. 11), and one projected on the west wall
entitled I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate (fig. 12). The virtual installation includes
the projected simulacra as well as all the projectors, cabling, plinths, and curtains required for the
simulated installation. This thesis support paper will start with a discussion of the overall simulation and
then progress to a more detailed description of the three main component parts, the simulacra.
To situate this thesis amongst other contemporary artists working in new media I started by
searching for artists that are working in a manner that I am striving to achieve. In general, I was looking
for artists that demonstrate technically excellence in the employment of innovative and sophisticated
new media technology. Artists whose work is precise. Work that is simple without being simplistic, that
displays an economy, a restraint, to its form and structure. Work that is meditative, contemplative, and
slowww. Art that creates space and yet has tension and affect. Lastly, I am interested in artists whose
work explores similar themes of spirituality, threshold, and environmentalism.

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Fig. 10 – Stills from the simulation, I Remember when the World was Thicker, 2024

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Fig. 11 – Stills from the simulation, I Remember when the World was Thicker, 2024

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Fig. 12 – Stills from the simulation, I Remember when the World was Thicker, 2024

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The simulation, I Remember when the World was Thicker, was inspired by the work of the
contemporary new media artist John Gerrard. Gerrard works predominantly in the medium of
simulation. Like the subject of this thesis, much of Gerrard’s body of work is related to
environmentalism. I am strongly attracted to Gerrard’s piece Farm, 2015. In this work he creates a
simulation of an existing sow farm in Oklahoma, shown in the gallery on a large format LCD display (fig.
13). The simulated farm is an exact replica of an existing pig farm. The camera in the simulation slowly
rotates around the farm at walking speed. The work uses an engine that displays the simulation in realtime. It is not a video. Gerrard attempt to build as photoreal a version of the farm as possible, gives the
illusion that the video taken of the real farm. However, there is something not quite right about it, it is
too crisp, too smooth. The viewer is left with an unnerving feeling, as they are not sure what they are
looking at. Garrard was able to access the site and take the thousands of photos required to build the
work because the farm is not fenced, there are no people working there. A few times a week trucks
show up to attach to the machinery of the farm building to drop off supplies and collect the product,
farmed pigs. Garrard describes it as post-human farming.
I remember when the World was Thicker takes cues from Gerrard’s piece. There are no people in
the installation. I wanted to create an empty place, out of time. To heighten this sensation, the
simulation is displayed along with some elements of the simulation physically in the room, as described
above. I am hoping to give the viewer the unnerving feeling that the installation had already taken
place. Had they missed it? Did it happen yesterday, or last year, or ten thousand years ago? I wanted it
to feel empty, lost, a shadow of the original. Also, I worked to create as photoreal a simulation as
possible, so that, like Gerrard’s piece, the viewer questions what they are actually looking at. This
impulse is expanded upon later in this chapter in the discussion of the writing of Jean Baudrillard and his
concept of the ‘hyperreal.’

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Image Removed for Copyright Purposes

Fig. 13 – Farm (Pryor Creek, Oklahoma) UCCA, John Gerrard, 2015,

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Nested within the thesis are the three simulated simulacra mentioned above. Although all three
pieces, I Remember when the Trees were Forests (fig. 14), I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped
(fig. 15), and I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate (fig. 16) share the subject of
defuturing and its related shadow aesthetic, each piece is also intended as a standalone work. I
Remember when the Trees were Forests speaks to the mechanical farming of the forests. The
symmetrical positioning of the trees, the straight edged cuts that are perceived to open and close on the
surface of the prop disk, and the plywood texture that appears during the revealing red light, are all
indications of a defutured world. The simulacrum is not of a complex forest, but of a simplified tree
farm. Only the shadow images remain to remind the viewer of the old forest’s trees moving in
moonlight.
The Light and Space tradition started in California in the late 1950’s and is connected to a
loosely affiliated group of artists including Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, Mary Corse, Helen Pashgian,
Robert Irwin, and James Turrell. I have found this artistic tradition to be highly influential on both my
architectural and artistic practices. This is especially true of the work of James Turrell, whose exhibition
Light, Space and the Art of Perception I recently experienced. Turrell’s use of pure colored light was
inspirational in the development of the red ‘revealing’ light that is inserted into the simulacra
animations. During the simulation, the simulacra switch into a ‘glitch’ mode were the projected light
turns a vibrant red. (fig. 18, 19, 20) This light is a reference to our defutured future moving towards us.
Over the course of this research, I have resisted the introduction of overt references to the death of the
individual moths, trees and fisher depicted in the works. Instead, the red ‘revealing’ light stands in for
this defuturing. I rely on the colored light to create the experience of the defuturing. I wanted it to be
physical, not intellectual. Again, like much of Turrell’s art, the artistic research in this thesis studies the
creation of simulacra as a vehicle that moves the viewer toward a meditative state. A state in which the
viewer can experience a greater sense of interconnectedness with the natural world.

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Fig. 14 - series of stills from I Remember when the Trees were Forests, 2024

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Fig. 15 - series of stills from I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped, 2024

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The simulacrum, I Remember when the Moth’s weren’t Trapped, has been discussed in some
detail in Chapter One. In this section I would add a short discussion about its position within
contemporary new media. In this piece I turn back for reference to the work of John Gerrard. In his Flag
works, Gerrard develops a series of simulacra that depict the nation state’s reliance on the consumption
of fossil fuels. These Flag simulacra all involving the animation of an abstracted nation state flag made of
black or colored smoke (fig. 17.) I am drawn to them as a reference for a way of drawing attention to
specific environmental issues without resorting to outrage or graphic content. They invite the viewer to
question what they are looking at. Recently I was referred to the work of artist Sabrina Ratte. In her
series Floralia, Ratte depicts a virtual archive of extinct plants. Similar to this thesis, Floralia is connected
to ideas of defuturing and the replacement of the real with the image of the real. I am interested in
further study of her work along with other emerging artists working in the space of simulation.
This thesis also draws influence from expanded cinema, and in particular the work of Bill Viola.
Viola is a contemporary video artist whose art focuses on fundamental human experiences such as
resilience, the threshold between life and death, and consciousness. His work is slow and meditative,
usually with an arresting moment interrupting the video loop. In Ascension a figure plunges into water.
This is the arresting moment that starts the video loop. Viewed from underwater, the figure is briefly
suspended in the form of a crucifix, before rising to the surface to then sink out of the bottom of the
frame slowly. I view this film are a type of simulacrum of the death of Christ. The threshold at the top of
the frame, between water and air, represents the threshold between life and death. The simple
meditative quality to the rest of the video sets up the affect of the arresting moment. In earlier versions
of I remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate (fig. 37), I worked with a similar arresting
moment of the fisher plunging through the threshold between their two worlds. This sequence begins

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Fig. 16 - series of stills from 'I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate V1,' 2024

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with the animation rotating to a digital view of the simulacrum that reveals that what initially looked like
a two three-dimensional animation was actually a three-dimensional view. This perceptual shift from
two dimensions to three, helped to create the arresting moment. In its current state, I remember when
the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate acts as the arresting moments in the larger simulation. The
simulacrum is depicted as ‘glitchy.’ It appears stuck in a short repeating loop that quickly breaks down
into the red ‘revealing’ light. Soon after, the simulation itself glitches to a full screen of pure red
revealing light. Here, I wanted to create as bright a light as possible to reveal the dark RCB room so that
the viewer could experience the color with more awareness of others in the room also sharing in this
experience.
In the early 1980’s, when I was about ten years old, I had the privilege of being given a
spectacular gift, a Commodore 64 personal computer. We were one of the first households in the
generally working-class neighborhood to own a computer. I found it captivating and became an early
adopter. When I was young, I was also diagnosed with dyslexia and I was always explicitly told by the
education system that I would not be able to graduate from high school, let alone pursue any form of
post-secondary education. Early in high school, I taught myself how to use the computer to change that
narrative. I came to equate the computer with survival. It was like playing with fire and it allowed me to
graduate from university and become a professional architect. My practice as an architect was, and still
is, rooted in my ability to use the computer in ‘cutting edge’ ways to create simulations of buildings,
landscapes, and communities. Over my life I have built many simulations and simulacra.

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Image Removed for Copyright Purposes

Fig. 17 – Western Flag (above), John Gerrard, 2017.

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In Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard addressed the significance of simulation in
contemporary media culture. The text is divided into chapters that read like a series of short essays. In
them, Baudrillard discusses the shift in postmodern culture away from simple representation and
towards increasingly sophisticated levels of simulation, which he conceptualizes as ‘orders of simulacra.’
Baudrillard cites numerous instances in society where simulation had become more interesting, vivid,
and valued than what he calls the ‘real.’ He argues that as the ‘real’ is replaced with simulacra, culture
becomes saturated with signs and symbols and that the proliferation of these symbols is resulting in an
‘implosion of meaning.’
Of notable interest to my research is the chapter “The Precession of Simulacra.” In it, Baudrillard
introduces the concept of the ‘hyperreal,’ an order of simulacra in which the simulation is perceived as
being more real than the ‘real.’ As an example, the author discusses Disneyland, ‘Disneyland is
presented as imaginary to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the
America that surrounds it are no longer real but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of
simulation.’ (12)
Although Simulacra and Simulation was published over forty years ago, one could argue that
Baudrillard’s questioning of the impacts of simulation is even more relevant today, at a time of ‘fake
news’ and the erosion of ‘truth,’ than it was at the time of its writing. The trends in media culture that
he outlines have only accelerated. The text is an important starting point as it came at the transition to
digital media and the proliferation of computer-generated imaging. It foreshadows the rise of
increasingly immersive video gaming and entertainment that is undermining our collective connection to
the ‘real,’ to the natural world. The text presents a sophisticated questioning of the impact of simulation
that is highly relevant to this artistic research.

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Fig. 18 - still from Forest Wood Grain Red Light Study 3, 2023

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Here I would like to introduce a simplified example of the power that symbols have to separate
us from the real. In Falling into Grace by Adyashanti, the author summarizes the ideas of the spiritual
teacher Krishnamurti. I cite this example because it discusses the bird form and the use of words as a
type of simulacra. Just like how the word bird is nothing like a bird, so is the image of a rainforest
nothing at all like a rainforest.
‘When you teach a child that a bird is named ‘bird,’ the child will never see the bird
again. What they’ll see is the word ‘bird.’ That’s what they’ll see and feel, and when they look
up in the sky and see that strange, winged being take flight, they’ll forget that what is actually
there is a great mystery. They’ll forget that they really don’t know what it is. They’ll forget that
that thing flying through the sky is beyond all words, that it’s an extraordinary and wondrous
thing that flies through the sky. But as soon as we name it, we think we know what it is.’ (7)

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Fig. 19 - still from Moth Right Light Study 2, 2023

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Fig. 20 - still from Fisher Red Light Study 4, 2023

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Chapter Three – Meditation and a Series of Studies

I started practicing yoga a little more than ten years ago, initially to help deal with the stress of
running an architectural practice. Through yoga, I was presented with a non-dualistic worldview. My
interest in non-dualism expanded through involvement in the larger yogic community. This turned out
to be consequential. It is difficult to put into words the effect that the practice of yoga had on me. I
experienced a profound shift. The practice of yoga led to meditation and mindfulness and an opening to
‘see’ the world differently.
This chapter focuses on the thesis’s artistic method. I Remember when the World was Thicker, is
a 3D digital animation made by combining Blender software with text-to-image AI. The process to
produce this work involves hours of dedicated seated computer work. A great amount of time is spent
testing through a series of small studies. As one study renders the next one begins. Before this studio
work starts, I spend time in walking meditations in the urban realm, and seated meditations in nature. I
find inspiration and motivation through this observational process. As this thesis progressed, I slowly
developed a process of wandering in the urban realm. I found myself looking for inspiration in the most
desolate urban spaces; in the places that I find leave me with the most intense feelings of alienation
from the natural world. Here I developed a process of projection bombing as a method of informing the
artistic production. (fig. 23) This chapter will expand on these two aspects of practice-based research.

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Fig. 21 – detail of moth ‘actor’, 2023

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This line of research began a few summers ago when I spent two months living with my father
on Vancouver Island. He suffers from Parkinson’s disease and as a result, everything moves slowly. This
time happened to coincide with the strange heat dome that enveloped the lower mainland and the two
of us settled into a slow lethargic rhythm, removed from contemporary life. Every evening, after dinner
was finished, I would make my way down to the ocean. There at its edge, I would quietly sit on the
ground for a few hours in simple observation. Unfocused, and open, with my awareness on the larger
soundscape, not individual sounds or their causes. Sometimes I would record my observations in a small
sketchbook. It was a form of meditative contemplation, and it had a profound effect on this artistic
research.
During my time with my father, the sky became fascinating to me. I would sit by the ocean and
watch it for hours. Friends told me that I had entered a ‘time of magic’ and that, in the past, they had
experienced something similar brought on by intense meditation. During this period, the sky lost its
‘background’ nature. It was no longer a void with clouds pasted onto it, but instead, it appeared like a
vast rolling, violent, colorful ocean that I lived at the bottom of. Birds flew like fishes. I would watch the
birds with the intense feeling that they and the sky were one and the same. This experience directly
influenced the creation of I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate. As the research
continued, I developed a process of seated meditation in nature and more ‘naturalized’ settings, such as
oceanside parks and beaches. I now take long walks or bike rides to access these places as a transition
to a more meditative state. Once there, I will sit in open observation. The inspiration for ForestStudy1
came out of this process.

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Fig. 22 - series of photos taken while on an urban wander. This area was once a vast complex tidal wetland.

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As a counterpoint to the time spent in open observation of the natural world, I began to
research, through doing, a process of urban wandering. The process I developed was similar to what is
sometimes called Flaneur. Merlin Coverley, in Psychogeography, describes Flaneur as, ‘wandering
without aim, stopping once in a while to look around.’ (67) Flaneur is connected to the concept of the
dérive, an urban observational method employed by the Situationist art movement of the 1960s. While
wandering I would be attentive to ‘zones of atmosphere’ and the thresholds between these zones. I
learned of this process many years ago as an architectural student and have employed it innumerable
times over my long career as an architect and urban designer as a way of assessing patterns in the urban
realm.
I experienced these wanderings as a form of moving meditation, either on foot or drifting slowly
on my bicycle. In the process, I found that I was drawn to forgotten, empty, interstitial service areas, the
spaces that most triggered my feeling of solastalgia. Over time I found that I would return to some of
these spaces dozens of times. While there, similar to the seated approach of open observation in the
natural realm discussed above, I would stand in open awareness listening to the ambient sounds of the
City.
During the urban wanderings, I became attentive to the pervasive graffiti and its connection to
my feelings of alienation and solastalgia. It wasn’t that the graffiti seemed to create these feelings but
that the spaces that felt the most alienating seemed to attract the most graffiti. Here I began to be
interested in the specific role contemporary art practices, primarily street art, might play in extending or
augmenting the realities of these spaces. In the article Exploring Extended Realities in Environmental
Artistic Expression through Interactive Video Projections, published in Big Data and Cognitive Computing,
A.J. Bongers sites many examples of street art in Sydney and Paris to highlight the continuum of methods

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Fig. 23 - still from projection bombing installation of MothStudy1, 2023

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used by artists to interact with the urban environment. Of notable interest to this research are works by
street artists Invader, Zigom.art, Titiskull, Will Coles, Banksy, Blu, Gregos, and Ememem. Bongers
connects this lineage of street art to his personal, along with other Sydney artists, work with ‘projection
bombing.’ Projection bombing is a style of art that projects digital video images onto the urban realm
using mobile projection equipment. The article contains a highly detailed technical discussion of
equipment setups used for the creation of walking projection bombing that does not require the use of a
car battery or power taken from street light posts. It lists suppliers and model numbers for various
power sources, video controllers, audiovisual software, projectors, and cable setups.
This technical research led to the development of two works of artistic production employing
projection bombing as a type of simulacra. (fig. 24 and fig. 25) The locations for these works were chosen
after significant wandering. They were sites where the underlaying natural patterns were the most
suppressed. They gave me an intense feeling of aloneness and emptiness. These two projection
bombing works greatly informed the final gallery simulacra, I Remember When the Moths weren’t
Trapped, and I Remember when the Fisher and Fish Weren’t Separate.
All three simulacra pieces were built over countless iterations. I approached their making slowly,
over many months and, in some cases, years. During their production, I often sat and watch each
computer produced animated shadow pattern move for long periods. Normally while the next iteration
rendered. It was preferable to do this at night when I could be alone and focused without distraction.
The process by which these works were developed was slow, reflective, and observational and is in itself,
a form of knowledge seeking. All three pieces essentially consist of three parts: 1) detailed shadow
puppets which I call ‘actors’ - Moths from the Polyphemus family, Douglas Fir Trees, and Pacific King
Fishers respectively; 2) the motion paths those ‘actors’ follow; and 3) a light source to animate the actors
in motion. All three parts are completely digital, existing only in the computer until exported through a
digital video projector. This thesis support paper will briefly discuss each in order.

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Fig. 24 - still from projection bombing installation of FishFisherStudy3, 2023

Fig. 25 - still from projection bombing installation of FishFisherStudy3, 2023

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Like how no two snowflakes are the same, the patterning on each of the moth’s wings, the fir’s
branches, and the fisher’s feathers is an unique individual expression of the larger species-specific
pattern. The desire to express this individuality led me to the research and development of a material
process by which I could generate many unique patterns that were an accurate depiction of the species,
while at the same time granting each actor an individual expression. I was looking towards a clean crisp
shadow aesthetic, where the detail of the wings, branches, and feathers is perceptible to the viewer. To
make the moth and fisher actor images I employed a piece of software called Mid-Journey.
The Mid-Journey bot uses relatively recent text-to-image technology. As the name suggests,
text-to-image will generate an image based on a text prompt. The bot takes the text prompt and then
sources billions of images to generate a new unique PNG image file. The prompting is highly specific.
Small changes in the phrasing result in significant changes in the image generated. In practice, the
process became highly iterative when the generated image was re-referenced with small changes to the
prompt.
Next, these images were processed through the raster graphics editor Photoshop to, amongst
other things, paint out the parts of the body and head that would cast opaque shadows. Throughout, I
worked to maintain as high a resolution and fidelity in the images as possible. I would like to make it
clear that the resulting images are not photos themselves but are, in essence, images made in
conjunction with a computer. These images can be made by the bot in any style: ink drawings, colorful
cutouts, Japanese 18th-century block prints. I developed a photorealistic visual style because I wanted
something as close to ‘real’ as possible. I wanted this piece to act as a form of research, a type of
bearing witness to the loss of the real and the replacement by the simulation, and to act as a warning
about the seduction of the simulacrum.

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Fig. 26 – selected fish ‘actors,’ 2023

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Fig. 27 – selected ‘raw’ fish ‘actors,’ 2023

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Fig. 28 - series of stills from the development of MothStudy2, 2023

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Once the individual actors’ images were finished, they were imported into Blender, an open-source 3D
computer graphics and animation software toolset. Using Blender, motion paths were set up for both
the individual actors as well as their collective movement patterns. The development of the motion
paths was a slow iterative process. It involved a great amount of testing, reflection, small adjustments,
and retesting. I was interested in motion that had a meditative quality to it. After the entire motion
pattern was roughed out, it was viewed repeatedly in a semi-meditative state, making small
adjustments. I intentionally added many moths and fishers to retain an aspect of the wild abundance of
the natural systems, before the anthropocene. From a technical perspective, the moths depicted in the
simulacra are not the images built in Mid- Journey but are instead shadows generated in Blender by
shining a ‘light’ through the moving actors, onto a digital flat white surface.
The Enso pattern is a traditional Zen practice of painting a circle in black ink in one continuous
motion of the hand and arm. The Enso is used in Zen Buddhism to symbolize Oneness or wholeness. It
can also represent impermanence. The drawing of the Enso can be used as a type of meditation. The
motion pattern for I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped is designed in reference to the Enso.
Being left-handed, I imagined myself painting clockwise. To create the Enso shape in Blender I set up the
overall motion to be circular. I divided the moth actors into two groups and assigned each group to a
circle motion path. I set the paths to rotate at slightly different speeds. This relatively simple setup
created a continuous meditative movement where the moths slowly pass over each other. I added a gap
in each circle so that as they rotated slightly out of phase, the gaps would at times align and produce a
gap similar to the traditional Enso shape. I then addressed the motion of the individual moth actors. I
built the wings to open together on the inside and flutter independently on the outside. This was done
through the addition of a bit of noise to the outside wing. A unique individual expression within the
larger pattern. In this way, the circular movement of the moths reflects the movement of the arm and

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Fig. 29 - series of stills from MothStudy2, 2023

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brush stroke. The ‘painted edge’ on the outside of the ‘brush stroke’ looks frayed, the inside a harder,
darker, more circular ‘cut.’
At times the moths were designed to roll together to reveal their side bodies, their legs all pointing
together towards the center of the image. This was done to reference the caterpillar form that they
spend most of their existence in. In MothStudy2, the color and temperature of the light gradually
changes from moonlight to street lighting—soft and silver, changing to sharp and yellow. The simulacra
begins with the light source off and ends with it turned on so brightly that it ‘burns through’ the moth
actors. Towards the end of the video the moth’s wings, delicate and dusty in the low light, lose fidelity
and become ‘burnt’ and ‘crispy’ when exposed to the flood of light. This is a reference to the light traps
created by artificial light, discussed at the start of this paper. At the end of the work, the viewer is left
trying to focus on a bright white empty screen. The moth pattern is gone. This version was directly
influenced by the projection bombing work in the ally and its connection to the street light overhead.
The fir tree actors in I Remember when the Trees were Forests were built using a different
process. For these, I researched generative 3D modeling bots designed to create tree forms. In the end,
I used an add-on for Blender called Sapling. This bot generates 3D objects that mimic the branching
patterns of individual tree species. My interest in using 3D forms for the trees was driven by a desire to
reveal their complex branching structures in the shadows using a rotating light source. This was not
possible to do using the Mid-journey techniques discussed above.
I remember when the Trees were Forests differs from the prior two in another significant way.
The projection bombing research heightened an interest in interlocking the projected animation with
physical objects. This is sometimes called projection mapping. A lot of projection bombings employ
types of projection mapping to interlock it with the built environment. Early on, I became interested in

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Fig. 30 – photo of projection mapping installation of HeadWaters, Bees and Lavinder, and ForestStudy2, 2022

Fig. 31 - photo of projection mapping installation of HeadWaters, Bees and Lavinder, and ForestStudy2, 2022

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researching how this style of mapping could be brought into highly controlled interior gallery spaces.
Using the 3D printer, I exported (printed) a 3D form (fig. 33) that was designed to interlock with
animation to create the illusion that the rotating animated light was casting ‘real’ shadows onto the
sculptural printed form. (fig. 32) I made several variations of this maquette.
Building on this work, I then constructed three larger maquettes entitled Bees and Lavinder,
Headwaters, and Forest Night. (fig. 30, 31) All three pieces used a physical wood base, machined using
the CNC router, onto which a simple animation was projected. These pieces were tests into how two
simple forms could be combined to create a third more complex work. This research developed into a
form of testing for the projection mapping aspect of I Remember When the Trees were Forests.

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Fig. 32 - photo of ForestStudy1, 2022

Fig. 32 - photo of ForestStudy1, 2022

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Fig. 33 - photo of installation of ForestMothStudy1, 2023

Fig. 33 - photo of installation of ForestMothStudy1, 2023

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Fig. 34 - series of stills from HeadWaters, 2022
Fig. 34 - series of stills from 'I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate V1' 2022

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Reflections

I Remember when the World was Thicker, contributes to the field of new media through artistic
research into new and emerging technologies used to create digital simulacra. The mass adoption of
many of these technologies will have a significant impact across society. This thesis studies the ongoing
substitution of the real with the simulated, the image of the real. In this sense, it is an expression of
solastalgia, a feeling of homesickness while still at home. Within this thesis can be found examples of
simulacra; mechanically farmed trees, moths in a light trap, fisher ceaselessly searching for fish. They
are representative of both the medium’s seductive attributes and its limits and inherent emptiness.
I Remember when the World was Thicker, was exhibited in the RBC Gallery at Emily Carr
University from March 25th until April 12th 2023 (Appendix A). This allowed me to spend time with the
piece, alone and shared with others. Developing and making the work brought on feelings of solastalgia
in me. It was my hope that people viewing the work would understand that it was coming from this
place. After discussions of the experience of the installation, it is my understanding that this aspect of
the work clearly came through. In particular, some viewers viscerally identified with a sense of loss
related to the simulacra, I remember when the Trees were Forests. It is this sense of loss, this sense of a
defutured future, that I was most hoping would come through in the piece. Part of my interest in
creating the simulation of the installation, as opposed to simply having the installation itself, was to
reinforce this feeling of loss. In making the work, I imagined that the viewer would experience the
installation with the feeling that they had somehow missed it. Many viewers that I spoke with did not
consciously realize that they were looking at a simulation of the room and not a documentation of a
prior event in the room. There was a clear sense in delight when deception was revealed, but also many
then expressed that the revelation left them with a feeling of unease. I hoped that they somehow felt
that they were looking at a shadow of the original.

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Moving forward, I would like to build on the research in this thesis. One clear direction forward
is to research the reconstruction of this piece so that it renders continuously in real-time. The 3D model
that the simulation is generated from has a camera which is set to rotate around the center of the room
at a slow eight-minute orbit, while pivoting 90 degrees to the left and right. The pivot is set to a slower
eleven-minute interval. This results in an endlessly different pattern to the viewpoint. My hope is that,
by removing the feeling that there is a camera operator, the sense of solastalgia that I imagine the work
reflecting, would be increased. Moving further, I am interested in pursuing this research through the
creation of simulation of a projection bombing in a number of the urban spaces visited during the course
of this research. For example, making a simulation of the lane that includes the moth shadows and the
projector and projection bombing setup with my car, hatch open and projector projecting. In a
simulation, the camera, or observer, could move up and down the lane randomly, at times the viewpoint
would hide the projector and at others the deception would be revealed – that moths no longer circled
the light. They were gone, only their projected image remained. The RBC gallery exhibit could be seen
as a gateway piece developed in a much simpler white box interior. Having never truly modeled in
photoreal, it enabled me the opportunity to develop the skills, techniques, and workflow that will be
required to model much more complex environments, such as the laneway.

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Fig. 35 - series of stills from 'I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate V1' 2022

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Bibliography

Adyashanti. Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering. Sounds True, 2011
Albrecht, Glenn. Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change. Australasian
Psychiatry, February 2007
Baudrillard, Jean and Sheila, Faria Glaser. Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan
Press, 1994 Originally published in French by Editions Galilee, 1981
Bongers, A.J. Exploring Extended Realities in Environmental Artistic Expression through
Interactive Video Projections. Big Data Cogn. Comput. 6, 125, 2022
Coverley, Merlin. Psychogeography. Oldcastle Books, 2006
Kieft, Jasmine and Bendell, Jem. The responsibility of communicating difficult truths about
climate influenced societal disruption and collapse: an introduction to psychological
research. Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) Occasional Papers Volume 7.
University of Cumbria, Ambleside, UK. (Unpublished)
McCarthy, Michael. The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy. New York Review Books, 2015
Morton, Timothy. Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People. Verso, 2017
Murphy, Michelle. Alterlife and Decolonial Chemical Relations. Cultural Anthropology 32, no 4.
https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.4.02.
Willis, Anne-Marie. Designing Time. In Fry, T., & Nocek, A. (Eds.) Design in Crisis: New Worlds,
Philosophies and Practices. Routledge, 2021

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(Other works referenced but not directly cited)
Alexander, Christopher. A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very
Early Turkish Carpets. Oxford University Press 1993.
Davis, Wade et al. The Sacred Headwaters: The Fight to Save the Stikine Skeena and Nass.
Greystone Books 2011.
Escher M. C and John E Brigham. M.c. Escher: The Graphic Work. 1989.
Kornfield, Jack. Meditation for Beginners. Sounds True, 2004.
Jorn, Asger. Theory of the Derive and Other Situationist Writings on the City.
Swenson, David. Ashtanga Yoga, The Practice Manual. Ashtanga Yoga Productions, 1999.
Watts, Alan. The Way of Zen = [zendō]. First Vintage Books ed. Vintage Books, 1989.
Nhất Hạnh and Melvin McLeod. The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh. First ed. Shambhala, 2012.
Ram Dass and Lama Foundation. Be Here Now, Remember. HarperCollins e-Books, 2010.
Schiffmann, Erich. Yoga, The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness. Pocket Books, 1996.

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Image List

All images by author, accept as follows.

Fig. 36
Artist Name: John Gerrard
Work Title: Farm (Pryor Creek, Oklahoma) UCCA
Work Medium: Projected Simulation
Word Date: 201
Image Courtesy: The Artist + PACE Gallery + Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Photography: Li Sen

Fig. 37
Artist Name: John Gerrard
Work Title: Western Flag
Work Medium: Projected Simulation
Word Date: 2017
Image Courtesy: The Artist + PACE Gallery

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Appendix A – I Remember When, Exhibit Installation and Extended Stills

The following is documentation is from the installation of I Remember when the World was Thicker,
exhibited in the RBC Gallery at Emily Carr University from March 25th until April 12th 2023.

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Appendix B – Design Sketches

The following is documentation of selected sketches made during the development of this thesis.

For ease of understanding, they are documented in the following order;
a) I Remember when the Fish and Fisher weren’t Separate.
b) I Remember when the Trees were Forests.
c) I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped.
d) I Remember when the World was Thicker.

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a) I Remember when the Fisher and Fisher weren’t Separate.

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b) I Remember when the Trees were Forests

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c) I Remember when the Moths weren’t Trapped.

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d) I Remember when the World was Thicker

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