The distance of doubt

The ‘copy’ exists in two different modes, two different kinds of spaces, two different realms of experience. The copy-as-original can be virtual, like an electronic signal, while the copy-as-edition becomes material, like printouts from a master code. Or, the copy-as-original can be materially based, while its replications exist virtually, like photographic scans, whether disseminated or not. No matter how we figure what a copy is, it extends the scope of our experience. We realise that our consciousness exists somewhere between the virtual and the material; or, more to the point,
it must exist as both. Actual and virtual are equally real, like an object and its image, an event and its dream. 

Human events are dreamlike — to use Gail Hastings’ term, our situation is a sculptuation, from which we negotiate a physical world and a conceptual world. The physical world is the sculptural; we can bump against it. The conceptual world is the situational; we imagine or formulate our situation in order to delineate a purpose in life and chart its prospects.