Jean Baudrillard 1981 Simulations - Mechanised reproduction has divided us from original/authentic objects; 'Simulacra' refers to the copy without an original. There is difficulty in distinguishing between what is real and what is not. Media influences have blurred the distinction between what is real and what is imaginary.
'Simulation refers to the collapse of this distinction between real (Original, innate, substantive) and simulated (constructed, imaginary). The result is a society/culture of hyperreality.'
What I think Baudrillard is saying is that we have allowed ourselves to become so absorbed by the media that we no longer live in a society of 'reality', our simulated world means we have no means of differentiating between fake and real. We are literally living in the hyperreal and there is no way of avoiding this. We watch our televisions about 'fake' people and their 'fake' lives and are completely drawn in; we discuss this with our friends talking as though the people we are discussing are real, even to the extent where actors have been assaulted for having a 'bad' character. This shows again the way in which we do live in a simulated world. Media influence has taken away the reality and replaced it with 'things'; objects, imaginary lives, copies of things that do not even exist, this causes us to live in a state of hyperreality.
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''Reality' has been replaced by the hyperreality of our simulated world ... it is the techno,logies of simulation themselves that rule.' (Roberts 2000:153)
Simulation:
-the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented . . . the representations become more important than the "real thing"
-4 orders of simulation:
1. signs thought of as reflecting reality: re-presenting "objective" truth;
2. signs mask reality: reinforces notion of reality;
3. signs mask the absence of reality;
-Disneyworld
-Watergate
-LA life: jogging, psychotherapy, organic food
4. signs become simulacra - they have no relation to reality; they simulate a simulation
-Spinal Tap
-Cheers bars
-new urbanism
-Starbucks
-the Gulf War was a video game
(http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/jean_baudrillard_and_hyperrealit.htm)
Monday 9 January 2012
Science Fiction
P K Dick stated that science fiction is about 'a society that does not in fact exist, but is predicted on our known society - that is our known society acts as a jumping-off point for it ... this is the essence of science fiction, the conceptuial dislocation within the society so that as a result a new society is generated in the author's mind, transferred to paper, and from paper it occurs as a convulsive shock in the reader's mind, the shock of dysrecognition'. (Dick 1981 'My Definition of Science Fiction')
Broderick also gives us a definition of Science Fiction, he concludes that 'Science Fiction is that species of storytelling native to a culture undergoing the epistemic changes implicated in the riseand supercession of technological modes of production, distribution, consumption and disposal. It is marked by (i) metaphoric stategies and metonymic tactics, (ii) the forgrounding of icons and interpretative schemata from a collectively generic 'mega-text' and the concomitant de-emphasis of 'fine-writing' and characterisation, and (iii) certain priorities more often found in scientific and postmodern texts than in literary models: specifically to the object in preference to the subject.' (Broderick (1995) in Roberts, A. (2006), Science Fiction, London: Routledge)
Broderick also gives us a definition of Science Fiction, he concludes that 'Science Fiction is that species of storytelling native to a culture undergoing the epistemic changes implicated in the riseand supercession of technological modes of production, distribution, consumption and disposal. It is marked by (i) metaphoric stategies and metonymic tactics, (ii) the forgrounding of icons and interpretative schemata from a collectively generic 'mega-text' and the concomitant de-emphasis of 'fine-writing' and characterisation, and (iii) certain priorities more often found in scientific and postmodern texts than in literary models: specifically to the object in preference to the subject.' (Broderick (1995) in Roberts, A. (2006), Science Fiction, London: Routledge)
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)
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.
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