When we see a magician cut his assistant in half, he makes us all believe the result without actually bleeding his assistant. Similarly, in animation nothing actually moves. In Flash we create a series of frames that make you believe something is moving. We love watching movies in the theatre or dramas on TV and are so touched by them. Are we watching the real thing happening, or just the illusions created by a series of films and the changing of the illumination on the screen to trigger our cognition? It's all about illusion and believing. Magician, Flash, Film or TV they all do nothing but utilize the technology available to help to "fool" the audience.
Why do we want to "fool" people when we have the real things? A magician will definitely defend that he doesn't want to commit murder by cutting anyone in half just to entertain. We won't be able to see many interesting people and things happening around us every day. Surely we would take the real if available, however, most of the time we are simply out of the reach of the real things. What would you do then if the real things aren't available when wanted or needed?
Most people nowadays hear the sounds of the musical instruments mostly from the woofers of the speakers, but not from the real instruments. Amazingly it may even be true to most professional musicians. Certainly the woofers aren't strings, pianos, flutes, or any of the conventional musical instruments. However technology converts the binary codes and translates them via Digital-to-Analog devices and make the woofers produce very convincing soundwaves that we will recognize and relate them to certain real musical instruments as we hear them.
What do we really want from technology in this aspect? The result! Even it's not a real one (illusionary or imaginary.)
Consider how many arts depend on the creation of such illusion. The technology is only the way that allowing us to achieve such results. When we are dealing the cyber/virtual realm, espeacially artistic creation, the most important essence is always keeping the direction we really want to go/achieve. Once we have that, then we can create a "real" illusion, with lots of functions and means. Most part of it also leads to imagination, which is one of the most valuable assets to humanity, as well as education.
