Frasca on Simulation and Representation – not the same ideology

“We are living in exciting times. For the first time in our history, we have the tools for pushing simulation into new frontiers. Simulation can now be used to model systems that were before way too complex to deal with. We now have a powerful alternative to representation and narrative to explain and understand our world. And simulation does not necessarily have to be a tool for education, but also for art and entertainment (as it happens with videogames). Unlike narrative, simulation offers a first hand experience of a dynamic system (and if the term “dynamic system” doesnt’ sound very excn you, [sic] you can replace it with “family”, “society”, “person” or whatever is that you would like to simulate). Simulation is a great tool for understanding rules and relationships among them. Certainly, representation has its own strengths and it would be very naïve to believe that simulation will replace it. The main problem is that representation is such a powerful ideology and is so ubiquitous in our culture that is hard to make the difference between it and simulation.”

— Gonzalo Frasca “Simulation 101: Simulation vs Representation” (2001)

 

In 2001, with the beginning of a new millennium, Frasca’s opinion: ‘we are living in exciting times’ must have been a widely held sentiment. In particular, technological advancements were occurring rapidly. Computers had become widespread, as powerful tools capable of performing ‘simulations’. In this article Frasca gave a provisional definition of simulation: “Simulation is act [sic] of modeling a system A by a less complex system B, which retains some of A’s original behavior”. This could be achieved without computers, but only with difficulty and to a limited extent. Computers can process input and make calculations far faster than humans.

So computers were increasingly being used for the purposes of predictive simulations. For example, one of the ‘new frontiers’ Frasca could have had in mind would be the use of computer simulations to aid meteorologists in predicting the weather. Frasca noted that as computer simulations were becoming more powerful, they could model more complex systems. Computer simulations, in Frasca’s view, offer new ways to ‘understand our world’.

In this article Frasca sought to differentiate between simulations and representations. Representations are an age-old tool, simple depictions of a ‘system’. For instance, a painting of a pipe is a representation of that pipe. Frasca also uses the term ‘narrative’ in conjunction with representation. A narrative can be thought of as a story, usually told sequentially. Frasca gave an example: if you suck on a pipe, smoke will come out the other end. So a narrative is a representation by way of words.

Representations and narratives are frequently used not to educate, but as a form of art, entertaining or pleasing the mind. Paintings and novels are clear examples. Frasca would argue that simulations need not be used only to educate, but could also be used for artful purposes. The obvious example of this is in video-games, played on computers or computer-like consoles. Games do educate players, at the very least teaching them how to play the game, but education is often not their overall purpose. Games can also show art or entertain players.

There is a difficulty here that Frasca struggled with: video-games can be said to contain representations and narratives. Each outcome of a game could be viewed as a story. Frasca argued that the simulation of a game is more than the potential stories it could produce, that it should be understood holistically – greater than the sum of its parts. In addition, games make players a participant in their system, not simple observers.
While simulations are used to model external systems or ‘tell stories’, essentially Frasca notes that, through their programming, they are a tool for understanding rules and relationships: if you change variable x, y is affected as a result. Whereas a narrative might simply state that y followed x.

Frasca acknowledged that simulation will probably not replace representations. Paintings and novels will likely remain popular even as video-games enter a golden age. Frasca simply sought to emphasise the important differences and encourage the independent study of simulation.