Download - Bou Drill Ard
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
1/17
Jean Baudrillard(1929-2007)
French sociologist,cultural theorist, author,political commentator
His best known theoriesinvolve hyperreality and
simulation
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
2/17
Simulacra and
SimulationJean Baudrillard
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
3/17
Influences Structuralism, Marxism, Sociology
Transitions through different schools ofthought
Labelled: Post-structuralist, Post-Marxist,Post-Modernist
Offers one view of postmodern conditionamong several others (Lyotard, Jameson)
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
4/17
Simulacres et Simulation
Published 1981 (Editions Galile) / English translation1994 (University of Michigan Press)
Series of short essays written at different times, applies &extends theory from the first essay, The Precession o f
Simulacra
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
5/17
How to read S&S It provides both a theory about how we construct andsimulate reality, and a social/cultural critique
Theoretical DimensionDraws together sociology, media studies, semiotics,history, and philosophy. Though about reality, S&S is not
strictly a work of metaphysics
Critique DimensionApplication of theory to criticize aspects of American
culture, consumer culture, TV, capital, science, and
politics
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
6/17
How to (mis)readBaudrillardBaudrillard is known for his:
Aphoristic writing
Hyperbolic statements
Politically charged examples
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
7/17
S&S in a nutshell
Today, reality has been replaced by s ign systemsthat recodify andsupplant the real. Simulat ionprecedes and determines the real.
Mass media shapes these symbols as agents of representation, notcommunication. Mass media creates a new culture of signs, images and
codes without referential value, and are exchangeable.
Contemporary society consumes these empty signs of status and identityhaving lost the ability to make sense of the distinction between the natural
and the simulation.
The era of simulation is thus everywhere...All the great humanist criteria of value, all the values of a
civilization of moral, aesthetic, and practical judgment, vanish in our system of images and signs. -
Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976)
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
8/17
What is Simulation?
Simulation is the active process of replacement of the real.
Whereas dissimulation (pretending) leaves the principle of realityintactSimulation threatens the difference between the true and the
false, the real and the imaginary(3).
Simulation is no longer a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a
real without origin or reality: a hyperreal i ty(Baudrillard 1)
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
9/17
What is a Simulacrum? A representational image or presence that deceives; the product of
simulation usurping reality
A copy without an original
Classical example: a false icon for God
Modern example: Disneyland
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
10/17
Simulation vsSimulacrum
Simulation refers to a process in motion,
whereas simulacrum (plural simulacra)
refers to a more static image
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
11/17
Simulation is a 4 step process of
destabilizing and replacing reality
1. Faithful - The image reflects a profound realityPortrait
2. Perversion - The image masks and denatures a profound realityIcon
3. Pretense - The image masks the absence of a profound realityDisneyland
4. Pure - The image has no relation to any reality whatsoever,it is its own pure simulacrum.
The ultimate Matrix
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
12/17
Causes of Simulacra(um)
Media culture Economics: Exchange-value, multi-nationalcapitalism, urbanization
Language and Ideology
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
13/17
Hyperreal: A world of simulacra where nothingis unmediated (i.e.-without previous meaning,
without intermediary mass media)
Media and medium mediate our experiencewithout our noticing.
We know that we are living in a mediatedworld, but as a result of the ubiquity of the
simulation life is now "spectralised...the event
filtered by the medium--the dissolution of TVinto life, the dissolution of life into TV".
What is Hyperreal?
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
14/17
Hyperreal Example TheAmericanDream as a simulacrum of?
Culture and media create and perpetuate thehyperreal.
Whatever experiences in our lives that aremediated are all simulations. Whatever is
mediated is what is simulated.
Freedom from Want. Norman Rockwell, 1943
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
15/17
Reality television as
hyperreal
reality tv as exhumation of the real in its fundamental banality, in its radical
authenticity
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
16/17
Reflecting On Baudrillard Baudrillard is a critical observer. He does not offer solutions. His observations point out the current human condition is based on
simulations of the idea of reality.
Reality is in the past and is corrupted beyond the point of recognition.
Looking back on S & S, what was it? What is the best term for it:theory, critique, aesthetic, or postmodern prophesy?
-
7/28/2019 Bou Drill Ard
17/17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3tr0gSNBx4