Book part: The Trauma Machine. Demos, Immersive Technologies and the Politics of Simulation
Author(s):
Abstract
This essay critically examines digital simulation
scenes or “demos” as a tool that is telling something
about the truth of the world with the aim of making it
unstable. Following Farocki’s take on war trauma therapies
treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
with responsive and immersive technologies, it makes
the effect of a demo on human subjectivity apparent.
From there, the essay traces the design of these
technologies back to the first video simulation experiments
of the Architecture Machine Group at MIT in
the 1970s: the Aspen Movie Map, in which race and
gender play a critical part in conditioning spectatorship.
Looking at the role of demos in urban planning,
the implications of this tool become fully visible.
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