From Bulimic Cannibalism to MasterChef: Practical Notes on Visual Architectural Analysis

Aim of the paper is the study of how architectural representation changed in the digital age, focusing the relationship between the two following opposing aspects: on one hand the idea of progressive loss of any referentiality with the real world—as suggested by the concept of “Hypereality” defined by Baudrillard at the end of the Seventies, i.e., a simulated reality more real of reality; on the other hand computer-based visualization as tool for measurement, interpretation and understanding of the world. Through a reading of “The measure of the World” by Daniel Kehlmann and—in parallel—the telling of the laboratory educational work made in the Architectural Drawing Couse at L’Aquila University, the paper presents an experience that puts together the lines of “New Realism” and “Digital Videocultures”, aiming at a revaluation of perception and architectural representation, as antidote to bulimic cannibalism of digital images, and as critical tool to analyze , interpret and undergo them to a validation/falsification process.