Calculating conceptions of natural phenomena: an archaeology of fluid simulation software

Abstract

Already since the 1960s, the field of computer science has been concerned with realistically simulating our natural world. The complex and unpredictable behavior characterizing natural phenomena like splashing waters and whirling fires has been an important topic of research for both the natural sciences, as well as the visual effects industry. Building on similar mathematical concepts, these fields try to capture and predict our natural environment through computation. Where the natural sciences are concerned with grasping the laws of nature, the visual effects industry aims to achieve realistic visualizations, independent from physical laws. This thesis looks at fluid simulation software, used for the visualization of phenomena like water, fire, and air, through a media archaeological approach to interpret computational systems. Such an approach, as formulated by Wardrip-Fruin in Media Archaeology (2011), aims to ʻdig outʼ the operational and ideological frameworks embedded in the structures and processes of computation. Using a theoretical framework ranging from media studies, philosophy of science and technology, phenomenology, and elemental theory, this thesis points towards a tension between the mathematical descriptions of water, fire, and air, and understandings of these phenomena as offered through elemental theory. Engaging with this tension shows how fluid simulation technology is steered by a rational, and instrumentalizing way of understanding the natural environment, which influences its possible usage and output. By comparing simulation with technologies for recording or sensing, it is shown that the goal of achieving hyperrealism in the development of fluid simulation software enforces visualizations of natural phenomena based on a “film-based image” of reality. Accordingly, this thesis proposes to use the work by philosopher Gaston Bachelard, and specifically the notions of ʻphenomenotechniqueʼ and ʻmaterial imaginationʼ, as a framework for the study of (fluid) simulation software, as it offers an understanding of the technology as inherently fictional and speculative, allowing for a process of creation that can destabilize its tendency for realism and a notion of computational visualization as objectively describing reality.