SECTION 1
Find out what Baudrillard means when he discusses Simulacra.
Simulacra is something that replaces reality with its representation. According to Baudrillard, the society we live in has become so absorbed with symbols and signs that we have lost all contact with reality, that all human experience is a simulation of reality. Baudrillard writes: “It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real” (“The Precession of Simulacra 2”).
According to Michael Camille, who analysed Plato’s opinion of Simulacra in “The Republic”, he defines that: "The simulacrum is more than just a useless image, it is a deviation and perversion of imitation itself - a false likeness". Imitation, resulting in the production of an icon or image, results in the production of a representation that can be immediately understood as separate from the object it imitates. The likeness, however, is indistinguishable from the original; it is "a false claimant to being". While the simulacrum is defined as static, it nevertheless deceives its viewer on the level of experience, a manipulation of our senses which transforms the unrealistic into the believable.
Furthermore, the simulacrum uses our experience of reality against us, creating a false likeness that reproduces so exactly our visual experience with the real that we cannot discern the falseness of the imitation.
Another version as to how simulacrum is defined is as "a material image, made as a representation of some deity, person, or thing," as "something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities," and as "a mere image, a specious imitation or likeness, of something". Like the simulation, the simulacrum bears a resemblance to the thing that it imitates only on the surface level, but as opposed to the simulation's mimicry of a process or situation, the simulacrum is defined as a static entity, a "mere image" rather than something that "imitat[es] the behavior" of the real thing on which it is based.
According to Baudrillard:
Orders of Simulacra | Phases of the Image |
1. Symbolic Order: Society is organised as a fixed system of signs distributed according to rank and obligation. The question of reality doesn't arise: the meaning of signs is already established in advance. | 1. Art reflects a basic reality (the sacramental order). |
2. First Order of Simulacra (associated with the Pre-Modern period): The image is a clear counterfeit of the real. The image is recognised as just an illusion, a place marker for the real. | 2. Art masks and perverts a basic reality. |
3. Second Order of Simulacra (associated with the industrial revolution of the 19th century): The distinctions between the image and the representation begin to break down because of mass production and the proliferation of copies. Such production misrepresents and masks an underlying reality by imitating it so well, thus threatening to replace it. However, there is still a belief that through critique or effective political action one can still access the hidden fact of the real. | 3. Art masks the absence of a basic reality (order of sorcery). |
4. Third Order of Simulacra (associated with the Post-Modern age): We are confronted with a precession of simulacra: that is, the representation precedes and determines the real. There is no longer any distinction between reality and its representation, there is only the simulacrum. | 4. Art does not resemble reality (pure simulation). |
What is the relationship between Spectacle and Simulacrum?
“Separation is the alpha and omega of spectacle” (Debord). Comparing Debord’s statement with the definition of Simulacra “something that replaces reality with its representation”, it is clear that there is some sort of relationship between the two. In the theory of simulacra; we separate ourselves from reality, representation becomes reality to us. The same can be said about spectacle, we are separated and isolated from the spectacle, we are on the outside, watching the spectacle.
If we examine Baudrillard's third order of simulacra we can see similatiries between simulacrum and spectacle. Spectacle has been defined as something that those with power use to control the masses and make them passive participants as to what is happening around them. Baudrillard states that there is no distinction between reality and representation because everything has come down to being only simulacrum, but also that: “Simulacra are not only a game played with signs; they imply social rapports and social power”.
Therefore we can make the conclusion that spectacle and simulacrum are very-tight connected terms. On the one hand, spectacle is a form of mythologising - it can be used to make people or objects seem to have much greater power or significance (i.e. royal mistique). On the other hand, the simulation of today's simulacrum is the process of taking something real then exaggerating it to make it look so perfect it could become a fantasy of the imagination. Hence in both situations, reality is stretched and reproduced, even though it serves a different purpose – reality is no longer the real, but its representation.
In Baudrillard's view, within the affected context nothing is "real", those engaged in the illusion are incapable of seeing it. In the same way those observing a spectacle are being distracted from the realities of power by engaging their emotions and overriding their minds. Instead of having experiences, people observe spectacles. Instead of the real, we have simulation and simulacra, the hyperreal.
In conclusion, in the core of spectacle and simulacra is embedded the message that the masses need to be controlled by those in power through making them NOT realise the reality they live in. The relationship between spectacle and simulacrum is to keep the masses away from reality, to manipulate them, in order to make it easier for those in power to control the audience.
What is the relationship between spectacle and simulacra and Marx's alienation?
According to Marx, alienation is the transformation of people’s own labour into a power which rules them as if by a kind of natural or supra-human law. The origin of alienation is commodity fetishism – the belief that inanimate things (commodities) have human powers (i.e., value) able to govern the activity of human beings.
The Marxist theory about alienation comes in here. Judy Cox writes: “We live in a world where technological achievements unimaginable in previous societies are within our grasp: this is the age of space travel, of the Internet, of genetic engineering. Yet never before have we felt so helpless in the face of the forces we ourselves have created.” As much as technology brings people closer to each other, it also alienates us from reality. The more densely populated our cities become; it created a sense of isolation and loneliness. Marx understood alienation as something rooted in the material world. “Alienation meant loss of control, specifically the loss of control over labour”.
For Debord, the modern society's authentic everyday life has been replaced with its representation: “All that was directly lived has become a mere representation”. Authentic everyday life has been replaced by the spectacle and the spectacle serves as a means of hiding alienation and the resolution for it. The “spectacle” is the alienation created by the images replacing the genuine interaction among people.
What is the relationship between spectacle and simulacra and Marx's commodity fetishism?
Fetishism in anthropology refers to the primitive belief that godly powers can inhere in inanimate things. According to Dino Felluga, “People in a capitalist society begin to treat commodities as if value inhered in the objects themselves, rather than in the amount of real labour expended to produce the object.”
According to Marx, we ceased to think of purchased goods in terms of use value – instead we think of the worth of things or what it can be exchanged for (beginning of capitalism). Once money became a “universal equivalent” things lost their material reality. We begin to think of our lives in terms of money not in terms of the real things we hold in our hands. According to Baudrillard, we have all lost our sense of use value: it’s all capital.
This is when the idea of simulacra comes in, we live in a materialistic world, the representation takes over reality, and things become more important than reality. As an example: Facebook is a representation of socialising. In reality socialising will be the act of meeting people face to face and talking. But people are lost in the representation; it has come to a point where sitting behind a computer screen has taken over the meaning of socialising.
In “The Society of the Spectacle” (1967), Debord argued the central role of the commodity in capitalism as analysed by Marx had been replaced by the spectacle. He states that in societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. The spectacle has made us believe that consuming material things is important, money is needed for every thing imaginable, “The spectacle is the maxed out credit card making all classes equal”.
Sources:
Baudrillard, J. (1983) Simulations
Baudrillard, J. (1994) Simulacra and Simulation
Debord, G. (1967) The Society of the Spectacle
Debord, G. (1988) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle
Camille, M. “Three Simulacrum” cited in Nelson, R. & Shiff, R. (2003) Critical Terms for Art History
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2.http://publish.uwo.ca/~dmann/baudrillard1.htm
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_simulacra
4.http://www.marxists.org/subject/alienation/index.htm
5.http://www.metapedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Media_Theory_Weekly_Discussion_Fall_2008:_Week_8
6.http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/marxism/modules/marxfetishism.html
7.http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2008-03/merrifield.htmLabels: 305mc |
