# the blind pursuit of total cinematic realism > 'rather than reproducing the "world" spontaneously and automatically as the ideology of realism would have the spectator believe the cinematic apparatus always operates selectively limiting filtering and transforming the images that are its raw material > ~ rodowick david n 1994 p.77 the crisis of political modernism: criticism and ideology in contemporary film theory in keeping with boing boing's strict classic attention economy injunction: "look at this (deus ex environmental concept rendered in unreal engine 4) - just look at it"; for what exists(tm) is always good - and here's more of i.t and so one looks with the usual passive interest - but what we see might only belong to the prevailing ideology of realism consider what's being manifested on screen or 'rendered virtual' a set of cultural ideas regarding the distinct non-playability and non-interactivity of a cold hard symbolic environment of massive control such video garmes featuring incredibly detail and scientifically accurate lighting effects are often referred to as 'tech demos' or 'barely interactive screen savers' since they only allow a strictly limited set of pre-defined interactive possibilities (eg. wasd while shooting people in the face) there's a loud unspoken assumption being stated in this scene in and through every pixel regarding how things are and how they should be - but according to who? > everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real > ~ niels bohr it's almost as though the reason such a world displays the precise high degree of graphic fidelity it has is precisely because it does not want you to change it; such a world is in total lock down just as this environment is one of control precise mechanical movement and security the player's alienation is built in to the scene and is reflected back in ir exact lack of genuine options for meaningful interaction // video here consider the modern blind / aggressive pursuit of total cinematic realism in video garmes as what might be called 'graphic fidelity' - that is unquestioning loyalty to the violence of cinematic realism people's concept of what's real is almost always that which is most convenient for them to believe at the time - brian eno imaginary landscapes: a film on brian eno (1989] perhaps the aesthetics being rendered in the deus ex scene unreal engine are the 'realistic aesthetics of the prison environment' in the robotic name of the prevention of non-official player meaning // republic of bob