For Simulation Only | About the work

This outdoor installation is based on a series of photographic reproductions of advertising posters for real-estate projects under construction.

Real-estate companies and contractors tend to advertise their wares on massive billboards, presenting their vision of the “ideal life style” for the potential customer. At the bottom of each poster appears in tiny letters the illusion- shattering sentence: “For simulation only”.

Using collage techniques, combining photography and digital imaging, advertisers create an image of a “Perfect World”. Embedded in this world are anonymous human figures representing the general public – the consumers playing themselves. These characters are always in the midst of generic activities: walking, talking, sitting or standing, and are used as a kind of ornament to the advertised product: the real- estate project.

In For Simulation Only, these posters are appropriated by the artist and undergo a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. After being cut and enlarged to the size of a real person, the faceless characters are pasted on uni-colored backgrounds based on the color-printing palette – yellow, cyan and magenta.

After being “rescued” from the dull prison of real-estate, the characters attain a new status as advertisements in and for themselves – the fifteen minutes of fame they were never intended for.