Hyperreality

Bennett and Royle state that 'the desirabilityof a given product is in a sense branded into our consciousness and unconscious. This leads to the world of what Jean Baudrillard calls the hyperreal, in which reality is fabricated by technology'. (2009:283-284) This statement in Bennett and Royle explains fully the way in which we are 'taken over' and absorbed in to the media. Hyperreality is the way in which simulacra has completely replaced the true reality of life. Postmodernism has almost ensured that we almost lose sense of what our reality is, or if there is such a thing as reality. The way in which we are manipulated by the media by adverts and billboards etc not to mention the huge advance in technology has left us with the question; what exactly is reality?


Hyperreality:
-a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra
-Borges
-Baudrillard argues that today we only experience prepared realities-- edited war footage, meaningless acts of terrorism, the Jerry Springer Show
The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. . . The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal. . . which is entirely in simulation.
Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.
  
Division between "real" and simulation has collapsed
 -stage a fake hold up
-circular referentiality:




M.C. Escher:


T.V. verité: microscopic simulation that allows the "real" to pass into the "hyperreal"
-t.v. replaces real interaction by simulating it
(http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/jean_baudrillard_and_hyperrealit.htm)

Many theories of postmodern literature link together. The process of defamiliarisation can be linked to Baudrillard’s simulation theory which in turn preceded the theory of hyperreality. The theories correspond with each other ultimately creating the confusion of postmodernism, by making the familiar unfamiliar then creating a sense of desire for the unfamiliar we are in fact moving in to the world of the hyperreal and creating a blurred vision between the real and the fictional.