Baudrillard

A note on post-modernism

We've actually been talking about this stuff....

Stuff we've discussed that connects:

Copyright

Semiotics

Mass reproducibility of images

What is art?

Rethinking progress

Knowledge construction: Ideas, truth, episteme

Death of the Author

No inherent meaning

Reusing n' appropriation

Movies, narratives, music, television shows

And post-structuralism

Competing truths

Constructed knowledge: values, right vs. wrong, "who's crazy and who's not" -re: podcast

-no "truth with a capitol "T""

(knowledge constructs, episteme)

"the stability of things"

• like words
• "how power works" (Foucault)

Foundations

The Podcast asked:

Why a simulation? Why would people want to stay?

Well, think about reality.....

Deboard, n' Sassure

The Society and the Spectacle, 1970

"Spectacle..." ?

Post-modern buzzword

On the daily: bombarded with media (news, shows, memes, etc.)

"spectacle"

2 hour block: zaney cartoons, western, drama, murder, weather

Think of the complexity--think of the "spectacle"

But also....

Think of painting, drawing, etc. and other media....

• Deneutralizes the media
• Media no longer a merely innocent outlet

The Situationists

-down with late-stage capitalism

Visual Bombardment

On the daily

Not just voluntary....

But....

the seige, the bombardment, the overtake of media

These constructions and creations.....

All of this culminates into

a sort of *simulation*

But how...?

Matrix

But remember!

as allegory

Ultimately, applying Baudrillard's S&S to the Matrix is actually pretty misfounded....BUT we can use the film as an *allegory*

Baudrillard's reaction....

SW n' "simulation": "an imitation of how a real-world process or system operates over time"

Now, consider "reality...."

That simulation....

"What if it's all around us?"

Not just dramas, sitcoms...but everything?

The News

Daily experiences

SW: "complex network of signs and symbols given

to them by the media and the people around them"

Semiotics!

Sassure's linguistic take....

We're surrounded by signs!

Signs which we've *assigned* meaning!

And then we can copy those signs again n' again!

...And remember, often times images can

become disconnected from their original meaning....

Consider Skeumorphs...

The meaning is still *slightly* connected, but clearly not completely.

So we start with a copy...say a painting

When do we go from a replica...to having a copy that has no connected, original meaning?

Where it gets deep....

Premise: "reality is that which can be simulated, xeroxed, or copied"

-Baudrillard

S.W.:"...and the for the last several hundred years, these signs and symbols that were originally used to directly represent something in the real world, have slowly evolved from representing reality, to then a media-created *copy* of reality, to then representing a copy of a copy of reality, and then a copy of that copy all the way to the point where these signs and symbols no longer resemble anything about reality as it actually exist."

Projected again and again. Affirmed via stores.....

This version becomes more real than actual Obama!!

Arrangement, selection, photoshop, etc.

Eventually no longer represents reality...

A Metaphor

If you tasted *real* flavored grape bubblegum?

"This isn't grape bubblegum!"

Blue raspberry--doesn't exist

Doesn't taste anything like a raspberry

Take it a step further:

What have ?some? kids probably had more of?

(Remember: the fake is more real than the real, right?)

Unrecognizable to the original!!

Consider this in the context of

visual culture

What are the implications politically?

What are the implications ideologically?

What are the implications socially?

Think: elections, how people rule....

You don't know what's wrong, if you don't know what's real

Remember Baudrillard n' the Gulf War?

SW: "the only thing the vast majority of people will care about is the simulation"

Audios, referent (signifier)!

Politics

Baudrillard n' the GW

• French newspaper
• Refused to go to the gulf; "covered" the war from CNN footage, instead

"War is real, if anything is real."

A victor, a loser

A staged presentation

Think of this in the context of DeBoard

The Media

The leveling of events...

The backstory

Rwandan Genocide

The U.N.

Total number of deaths

What comprised more of our reality?

Hong Kong protests in 2020

-biggest political protest in the

history of man....

So the media decides what's important

and therefore decides

what constructs our reailty

• Entirely constructed
• No original
• Continually replicating in a new way
• Does not actually exist

Blurred iterations of a person

-'80's--playboy

-90's--money

'00s--absurd, bumbling, gimmick

'10 n' on--oh boy

Stephen Cobert

History

"Retro-fitting [events into] a new reality"

We see representations of history...

Consider imagination

-anything can be simulated now....

Finances

selling point on appearance; not function

Global relations, colonialism, etc.

Go even deeper

• Identity
• How we think
• Socializing

But how n' why?

Mass production

• of images
• of products
• of ads

The more things are copied, the more they deviate from the original

A metaphor

It's easier to get modified

What *allows* this to happen?

Without stability, our ideas about the world--our grand narratives n' knowledge-systems--begin to break-down

Consider just how defused we are:

• politically
• spiritually
• ideologically
• financially
• culturally

A fracturing of the body politic

S.W.: "What does a post-modern, fragmented society really look like? How does it remain held together, despite the citizens having different identities, having such different interpretations of the meanings of things? How does society work when you can be living in a different universe then the person sitting next to you on the bus?"

Orders of Simulacra

1st Order

• straight up representation (think photograph or realistic painting)
• allows a clear dividing line between the real and the not-real

2nd Order

• A modified representation (think a 'shopped pic)
• Still allows distinction between real & not-real

The authority of each depends upon our *trust* in signs (i.e. representations)

3rd Order

• A modification of the modified representation (think advertising)
• Seeks to parade as real
• Attempts to blur a distinction between the real & not-real

4th Order

• No distinction between real & simulated
• the real ceases to matter
• arguably has no *actual* original (think Disney Land)
• MORE REAL THAN THE REAL, ITSELF

B's beef with The Matrix:

Held a *distinct* difference between the virtual n' the real

The hyperreal

No longer a difference

between the "real" and "unreal". The unreal substitutes the real so well, it's no longer an issue which is which.

Baudrillard: the "reality of the world is … a reassuring hypothesis’ that ‘dominates our value

system today"

"Hypothesis"

Modern application, Part 1

Consider technology n' AI

• Google Maps
• Alexa
• Siri
• Fitbits

• Doing things people would've done

• Does it matter they're not people?

No original!!!!!

Baudrillard: People no longer exist in each other; they exist in commodities

Remember capitalism's hand in alla this?

Baudrillard

Simulation & Simulacra

Barthes

Foucault

Imagine having

never seen these symbols

before. This is how they exist

as "signifiers."

The thing, itself, before its name or connotations

Signifier

Sign

Signified

"Unicycle"

One wheel

One seat

Signifier

"Jim Carrey"

comical

expressive face

Ace Venture, The Mask

Marshall Bill

Signified

• online community
• petty arguments
• cute animals
• supportive communities
• interesting news

= Reddit

two intersecting slats

religiosity

Jesus

Christianity

"Cross"

(when the word's applied in areas of divinity or spirituality

Meaningless drawing of an alien

Sign

Signifier

Signified

• coffee
• 90s
• Seattle
• thirst
• expensive
• "basic" bitches
• damn good Chai

Capitalism

Brands

Selling the image of the product vs.

the product

the simulation must change to distract or align

with societal values

weight watchers

Does it taste anything like a

real grape?

BLUE RASPBERRIES DO NOT EXIST

Also, taste *nothing*

like a real raspberry!

Media constructed

Gordon

Who creates the meanings?

YouTube Error Screen

S.W.: "post-structuralist thought continues to deconstruct and fragment these grand narratives that people all throughout history have used as labels to define their identity...the more these sets of ideas are fragmented, the less they can be used as archetypes for people to attach their identity to."

Simulacra n' capitalism

Virtual K-Pop hologram popstar

It's not that there's "no truth"; there's just too much truth.