Write a short analysis (300 words approx) of an aspect of our culture that is in some way Hyperreal.
'Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness defines as "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience.'
An example of hyperreality is Las Vegas, you can go to Las Vegas and see the Eiffel Tower and Venetian canals, empire state building and pyramids all at once. Baudrillard studies how hyperreality effects us, when the un-reality masks the reality. This can be seen in Las Vegas, people go to Las Vegas and they can see monuments from all over the world without having to get on an aeroplane more than once, you would never get all these monuments in the same place in reality so this situation becomes hyperreal.
'It is the generation by models of a real without origins or reality: a hyperreal' (Baudrillard), this discribes Las Vegas well, it is all based on reality but have been scaled down, lit up, made more accessible and exciting, to the point people would rather see the copies than the reality. It is when the copy becomes more known than the original that hyperreality becomes what our consciousness defines what is real, when it it is just a copy of the real, the reality.
Like Las Vegas, New York can also be viewed as a hyperreality,people get the idea of New York from films and television. People think it's a romantic place because they have seen it on a film, their idea comes from a movie which is a simulacra of New York itself. It bodes the question, can we ever get an original idea of New York for ourselves? What people see in films and television it taking over the true reality of New York, Las Vegas and places similar, has it got to the point where we'd rather stare at the wall of Platos cave then face the harsh reality of the true world.
Aim- To examine how Deleuze and Guattari draw emphasis to the constructed and contingent nature of social reality.
-Student and worker protests in Paris-directly challenge the French state.
-A Thousand Plateus.
-Concept (signified)
Sounds/Image (Signifier)
-Plato's allegory of the Cave- metaphor for society
-Prisoners kept in the cave, all the can see is the shadows that are cast on the wall of the cave.
-The prisoner believe the shadows to be reality, its all the know.
-It realities to our society in the way that mass media is shown to us.
-This is where Baudrillard project starts- how un-reality masks reality.
-How commodity cultures create alternative realities, which makes reality hard to access.
-Haddon Sundblom illustrations- Coca-Cola adverts
They give santa a red and white outfit, this is the image of Santa that is always seen and used, Coca Cola made santa red and white, they picked one story and made that the reality that this has always been the father christmas we know.
-How to get to the real/origin of the copy.
-How our investment in these brand image effect us as people.
-Brand image- the unreal having an effect on the real world- how we taste, Coke and Pepsi taste challenge.
-Baudrillard- Post Structuralism
-Guy Deboed-Society of the Spectacle- how society becomes increasing unreal, society that lives around spectacular imagery of life instead of real life itself.
-People are investing in fake realities
-Marx-analysing commodity culture.
Commodity-use value and exchange value
-Baudrillard
Commodity- use value and exchange value and sign value
-Sign value- all the things that something conotes.
-Advertising and brands try to add sign value to their products.
-Simulacra and Simulation (18981)
Simulacra is a copy of something, a stand in for something that it replaces.
The Coca cola santa is a simulacra of the myth of santa, it replaces this myth with this image.
It supersedes the original, makes it hard to tell the original from the copy.
-When simulacra is copied from simulacra to simulacra you get a hyperreal. When the original is no longer known.
-The copy is not produced by something real, the copies are produced from the copies. Reality is produces from simulacra instead of the other way round.
-The Sleeping Beauty Castle, Disneyland- Walt Disney took inspiration from a real castle in Prague, it was from a real place and it was a real castle. He made drawing of this, simulacra, and added more fairytale features, making a hyperreal. People visit it because they know its the inspiration for the Disney castle, the copy is influencing the real world.
-The Christmas Markets- Marketing Germany to the English market, they made a light hearted version of the Frankfurt market, they made a copy of a market, a simulacra. Nearly every city in the UK have one, so its a copy of a copy, a copy of the first one in Birmingham. The one in Birmingham is three times bigger than the one in Frankfurt, its more popular than the original. You would be disappointed with the reality if you went to the original one in Frankfurt because it wouldn't have everything the UK ones have.
-New York City- You think its a romantic idea because you have seen it on a film, your idea comes from a movie which is a simulacra of New York itself.
Can we ever get an original idea of New York for ourselves.
-We'd rather stare at the wall of Platos cave then face the harsh reality.
-The Gulf War Did Not Take Place
-The Illusion of the End: September 11th 2001
The Gaze
-'men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at'
(Berger 1972)
-Our society is a Panopticon for women.
-Hans Memling- 'Vanity' (1485)
You can look with out being seen your looking, the gaze is not being returned. Allows us to objectify.
-All art at this time was by men, and all the people buying art would of been men.
Men are in the dominant position.
-Visual culture has always been dominated by men.
-Its an excuse for men that they can dominate women.
-To be an artist in 1863 you have to exhibition at salon where your work would be judged, you had to hit a certain number of conventions.
-Birth of Venus & Olympia-
Venus doesn't return the gaze
Olympia returns the gaze, she challenges the gaze
The body language is different.
Venus is a fantasy scene.
Olympia is a prositiute, she is the reality.
Venus is a fiction of patriarchal society.
-Pornography is the domination of men over women.
-Marxist analysis- these things are produced because men rule society.
-The whole of culture becomes a giant panopticon.
-Sex becomes hyperreal.
