motion control / simulation Motion control and motion tracking race a very wide field which spans from controlling and surveillance to imitation and simulation. It ranges from geological and thermostatical research (earthquake detection, wheather observation) to imitating and following human motions. Again informations from various sources are brought together. 'Die Sehmaschine', p.26 Virilio, Paul Here more clearly and obviously reality and virtuality of our perceptive modes begin to intermingle. Anyway this a complicted issue as the border at least in theoretical terms is hard to be defined. But also looking at it more from a pragmatic point of view brings up difficulties for a clear definition, where one area ends and the other starts. As the creation of reality is a simulation of itself and has always been, because the imagination of the unperceivable world is a mode of thinking. We cannot directly grasp reality, eventhough Merleau-Ponty once said '.. all I see is principally within my reach, at least within the reach of my view ..'1 , it is a mere reflection. (movie) 2 'cyber-moderne', p.226 Fassler, Manfred Nevertheless the simulation of reality today creates a new dimension of indifference, now that the real and the virtual are developed and distributed from the very same devices. 'The programmed visible produces, supports and mutates not only perception; it forms a layer of its own as becoming a part of the unperceivable world and at the same time the mode of its visualization.'2 As the machinic has been actualized in our everyday experience, there is a profound alteration in the way how reality and thereby 'truth' are constructed. (movie) 3 'snap to grid', p.107 Lunenfelde, Peter Virtual reality, cyberspace, with its constantly enfolding and unfolding structures, offers us a way to imagine a permeable environment wherein we enter spaces forever smaller or larger - a kind of physical movement which perforce is impossible. So the hybridization of hardscape and imagescape takes this previously disembodied experience and reintegrates it into the human spatial environment.3 This allows also the intermingling of diverse 'realities'. 4 'cyberhypes', p.239 Lèvy, Pierre And a more relevant phenomenon has been coming up with 'the evolvement of telecommunication, the electronic media and information technology, which had been effecting each other thus leading to the explosion-like growing of the so called cyberspace. In this medium all sources of signs, if they are descended from non-human (recording or receiving devices of any kind) or human sources (persons or groups) are going to be connected equally'.4 5 'machinic vision', p.44 Johnston, John also quoting A.Clark from 'Being there: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again', p.68 Though now seemingly everything can be in exchange with anything, what is important, 'is the extent to which most higher cognitive activities take place through interactions with external resources (whether machines, methods, or both), so that while "individual brains remain the seats of consciousness and experience ... Human reasoners are truly distributed cognitive engines".'5 Some links to more information about the diverse direction of motion control: Algorithmics of Motion Satellite Derived Motion Vectors Neuroimaging Research Head Tracking 3D Tracetory Motion Tracking (High Speed Cameras) Motion Capture Systems 3D Motion Tracking System and DIY with sluggish software