In the past, the rendering was considered representational of the proposed design. Overtime, this morphed into an idea of the render as a mimicking of reality. But now as both a part of the design process and a medium in and of itself that has become so well adapted at mirroring reality, the render has become its own object separate from the physical model it is made to represent. As software has evolved in quality to meet the demands for extremely realistic renderings, the relationship between reality and computer-generated space has manifested in different ways. The render, functioning so well because of our acceptance of its ambiguous presence in reality, is a tool that can be explored as an object, a simulation, or a representation — each of these lenses shaping the way it exists in the systems that it reinforces
