Simulacra Naturans

Natura naturans was exhibited by the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre on the grounds of Hong Kong Park.
Natura naturans is a Latin tag coined during the Middle Ages, meaning “Nature naturing”, or more loosely, “nature doing what nature does”. The Latin, naturans, is the present active participle of naturo, indicated by the suffix “-ans” which is akin to the English suffix “-ing.” naturata, is the perfect passive participle. These terms are most commonly associated with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. For Spinoza, natura naturans refers to the selfcausing activity of nature, while natura naturata, meaning “nature natured”, refers to nature considered as a passive product of an infinite causal chain.
The title is at first glance in stark contrast to the idea of replicating a view into a natural vegetation. Even more so as what is considered nature, and with it the wilderness of a natural state, is in fact a park – arguable the opposite of a wilderness. In the context of Hong Kong, one of the most artificial natural states, where slopes are cast in concrete with registration numbers of the architectural service department, the maintenance department or highway department, this title is a tongue in cheek, adabsurdum reference.
A simulacrum (plural: simulacra from Latin: simulacrum, which means “likeness, similarity”) is a representation or imitation of a person or thing.[1] The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original.
The simulacra is the hyper-real that has a right of existences independent of the copies real. In particular, French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. Where Plato saw two types of representation—faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which “bears no relation to any reality whatsoever”.