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Simulacraand

Hyperreality

ChrisLivesey

Lesson Outline

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

Of Simulacra and the Hyperreal

While It's probably fair to say postmodernism, asa body of work, has something of a reputationfor both its unforgiving density and wilfill-obscuranticism, many aspects are bothphilosophically interesting and sociologicallyrelevant, even at A-level.

One such aspect (or two if you counthyperreality - which we will) is Baudrillard'sconcept of simulacra. Not only is this conceptreasonably accessible to an A2 sociologyaudience it’s also one with which you can havea quite a bit of fun (if by “fun” you mean “messwith students’ head”).

This lesson plan is designed to introduce and tosome extent explain the related concepts ofsimulacra and hyperreality using practicalexamples to illustrate the processes. In thisrespect you have a couple of choices to makeas the lesson progresses – use the pre-prepared examples I’ve suggested (or substituteyour own) and / or include some simple practicalexamples students can construct forthemselves. If this sounds a bit over-complicated I’ve separated-out the two ideas inwhat follows to make it easier to understandwhere I’m going with this.

Simulacrum

The first thing to do is come up with a definitionof “simulacra / simulacrum” that meets yourstudents’ needs in terms of understanding. I’vekept it basic here but you can either flesh it outat the start or keep it simple and suggest waysstudents might want to beef-up the definition aspart of any post-lesson work.

At its most basic, therefore, a simulacrum is "arepresentation or imitation of something"; it is,for our purposes “a copy” and, to keep things(relatively) simple we can describe three orders(or types) of simulacra.

If time is tight or you simply want to examinesimulacra / hyperreality in terms of

postmodernity you can skip parts 1 and 2and go directly to part 3.

1. An original that is a copy

To understand what we mean by this order ofsimulacra, have a look at this picture:

You can either use a copy of this picture (orsomething similar) or, if you’re using theaccompanying video, this is the first clip.

Why is this a simulacrum?

On one level the “Mona Lisa” is an original 16th

century painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. But it isalso a copy because it is a representation of areal person (possibly Lisa Gherardini althoughher exact identity is not particularly significantfor our current purpose).

In other words, “nature” is the original and therepresentation (in this instance a painting) ofnature is the copy.

Optional student practical

If your students are allowed to bring theirmobiles into class get them to take selfies ontheir phone. Alternatively, take a class photousing your mobile or tablet.

Once this has been done, ask your students ifthey can distinguish the real from therepresentation.

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

In both cases (the painting or the photograph)you will probably receive similar answers – forexample, the real is a living, moving, three-dimensional, person while the representation isjust a snapshot (quite literally if you use thestudent practical): a moment caught in time thatrepresents “the real person” etc.

It would be very difficult to confuse the real withits representation here.

You can, if you want to keep the mood light, testthis with your students by getting one of them tostand at the front of the class, hold the selfiethey’ve taken up for the class to see and thenasking your students to say which is real andwhich is representation.

Additional Teaching

1. You can reinforce this idea by usingsomething like Hagarty’s (2004) observationthat first order simulacra involve the idea:

“Representation is clearly an artificialplacemarker for the real item.

The uniqueness of objects and situations marksthem as irreproducibly real

and signification obviously gropes towards thisreality”.

2. If you want to link simulacra and hyperrealityto a pre-modern / modern / postmoderncontinuum you could note this first order ofsimulacra is the dominant mode in pre-modernsocieties (partly because the technology formore-sophisticated forms of reproductiondoesn’t exist).

This first order is, however, also present in bothmodern and postmodern societies (with bothpainting and photography being obviousexamples).

2. A copy of an original.

The second order of simulacra involves thedevelopment of large-scale manufacturingtechnology in modern societies when, for thefirst time in human history, it was possible tomass produce exact copies of something. Inother words, it became possible to take anoriginal and produce tens, thousands, evenmillions of exact reproductions.

An obvious contemporary example here mightbe the mobile phone; from one design,prototype and so forth there eventually emergemillions of identical copies.

You can either use a copy of this picture(or something similar) or,

if you’re using the accompanying video,this is the second clip.

If you want another example get the students tolook around their class and at each other;everything they see - tables, chairs, walls,windows, pens, clothes – are almost certain tobe second order simulacra.

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

Why is this a simulacrum?

As with first order simulacra we have adistinction – a little more blurred perhaps –between an original and a copy. The maindifference here, however, is that the copy islikely to be an exact representation of theoriginal such that, for everyday purposes, thetwo are indistinguishable. The representation is,for all intents and purposes, that which is real.

Having said this, it could be possible, givenenough resources, to distinguish between thetwo (although, for most of us, this is not adistinction we would bother to pursue – if wehave an iphone that works and does everythingwe want why would we bother trying to find the“original iphone” - presupposing one actuallyexists - since it would do no more than theversion we already have).

Optional student practical

If you’ve taken the selfies in the previousexample the next step here is to “mass produce”them and one easy way to do this is foreveryone (if it’s a small class) or just a chosenindividual (if it’s a large class) to send their selfieto everyone else in the class.

Alternatively, send a class photo to everyone inthe class.

Ask your students if they can distinguish the realfrom the representation.

In this instance it starts to become much moredifficult to distinguish between the two becausethe copy is an exact reproduction of the original.

If you know something about the original (suchas, in the student practical example, who tookthe picture) then it may be possible to decidewhich is real and which is the representation)but this, of course, is not always possible in thewider world.

A key point here is that, theoretically, it might bepossible – with sufficient investigation – todecide which is the original and which is thecopy. This will, of course, be easier for someobjects than others. In the case of a painting, forexample, it may be relatively easy to identify theoriginal from which many identical copies havebeen made, especially if the creator of theoriginal has somehow authenticated their work.

Additional Teaching

1. If you want to link simulacra and hyperrealityto a pre-modern / modern / postmoderncontinuum you could note that this 2nd order ofsimulacra is the dominant mode in modernsocieties.

Here, distinctions between the real and therepresentation breakdown precisely becausecopies that are indistinguishable from both theoriginal and the myriad other representationscan be mass-produced. In basic terms, therepresentation is effectively a clone of theoriginal.

2. We also start to see the concept ofrepresentational commodification here in thesense that mass reproductions are madespecifically for sale.

As with the previous order this kind of massreproduction is present in postmodernity (but notpre-modernity) in both its commodified form(such as mobile phones and cars) anduncommodified form, such as sharing pictureson the Internet – although if you decide to godown this route with your students there’s aninteresting discussion to be had aboutcommodification in postmodernity – the picturesand videos shared on the Internet can becommodified by people other than those whocreate and own them...

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

3. A copy without an original

If the first two (scene-setting) ideas seem prettystraightforward, this third order of simulacrarequires a little more thought, mainly because itbegs the question of how it is possible to havea copy of something (“an original”) that doesn’tactually exist?

The (simple) answer is that we’re moving awayfrom the idea of tangible objects (such as apainting, photograph or phone) and into therealm of subjective, intangible, ideas about theworld. In other words we’re starting the explorehow people see and understand their world and,by so doing, we’re moving into a realm thatconsists of representations of representations.

To try to make these ideas intelligible tostudents we’re going to use an example – in thisinstance the idea of “The Wild West” but youcan use anything with which you’re comfortableand the students are familiar (something likeDownton Abbey would work equally as well).

Introduce the idea of a narrative and defineit if necessary:

A narrative is a story we tell to make sense ofsomething, such as “The Wild West”. It does thisby imposing an overarching sense of structureand order on an event – or, in the case of theWild West, series of disparate, largelyunconnected, events – that gives it some sort ofmeaning.

We’ve chosen this example for two reasons:

a. “The Wild West” is just a name we give to aperiod in 19th century American history. In thisrespect it is in itself a representation.

b. It’s a period with which students should havea passing familiarity - enough for our currentpurpose at least.

Ask your students to tell you about “The WildWest” – what was it and what did it involve?

They can either write down what “The WildWest” means to them individually or you cantreat this as a class exercise – students call-outanswers, for example.

While students should be able to come-upwith a range of ideas you can use the third clip

on the accompanying video if necessaryas a way of stimulating ideas.

You’ll probably get a range of ideas along thelines of:

● Cowboys;● Indians;● Gun fighters / fights;● Notorious Outlaws;● Saloons / saloon girls / fights.

Why is this a simulacrum?

The point to get across here is that therepresentation we believe to be “The Wild West”bears no relationship to any reality; it is almostentirely the product of mediated images passeddown to us over the past 150 years through:

● Journals and comics of the time thatmythologised “cowboys” and gunfighters

● Wild west shows (such as Buffalo Bill’s WildWest Shows that toured the world between1883 and 1913) that mythologised Cowboys,Indians, frontier life and the like.

● Hollywood films from the early 1900’s throughto the 1950’s

● Television shows from the 1950’s onward

In this respect our perception of the wild west –what we believe it to be – is a mediated realitywhere one invented idea is layered on the nextto produce a representation of reality thatconsists entirely of copies that have no originalsexcept other copies.

“The Wild West” is, in this respect, arepresentation of a representation - a copywithout an original…

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

Hyperreality

The Wild West example – or any other exampleyou might have used - also illustrates theconcept of hyperreality: a representation that is“more real” than the reality it purports torepresent.

Our beliefs about “The Wild West”, for example,are more real to us than the reality of this periodin American history.

In this respect we can see how simulacra – whatBaudrillard calls “representations that refer toother representations” – are inextricably tied tothe concept of hyperreality; they are two sides ofthe same coin.

In the Wild West example, is it possible todistinguish the real from the representation?

When thinking about 3rd order simulacra,therefore, to talk about separating “the real fromthe representation” is meaningless since, if weaccept this argument, the representation is thereal – or, if you prefer, in postmodernityrepresentations are the only reality.

Additional Teaching

If you want to apply these ideas further there areplenty of opportunities in Sociology to do this,the most-obvious being in relation to the massmedia.

Representations

While modernist approaches considerrepresentations in terms of how and why theymisrepresent particular groups, Baudrillard(1995) argues representations can't beassessed in terms of whether something likeclass or gender is accurately or inaccuratelyrepresented because how something isrepresented is its reality.

Modernist approaches suggest the mediarepresents ideas like class, age, gender,ethnicity and the like in ways that distort itsreality; "the real" is compared to its mediarepresentation in order to disentangle it from the"not real". Baudrillard suggests this approach ismistaken on two levels:

1. It assumes things in the social world have areality outside of how they are represented. Inthe physical world, for example, we can look atthe original, authentic, Taj Mahal and compare itto the various ways it has been representedthrough inauthentic copies such as the “TrumpTaj Mahal” casino.

Concepts like class or ethnicity, however, haveno authentic reality because they are socialconstructs; the product of how they are initiallydescribed and represented. All the media does,therefore, is construct simulacra:representations of representations.

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

2. "Reality" is experienced differently dependingon who you are, where you are, your source ofinformation and so forth. Every audienceconstructs its own version of reality andeverything represented in the media isexperienced as multiple realities, all of which -and none of which - are authentically real;everything is simply a representation ofsomething seen from different viewpoints. The"reality of anything" - class, age, gender,ethnicity or whatever - can’t be found in anysingle definitive account or experience.

The conventional way to look at mediarepresentations, therefore, is in terms of howand why they misrepresent particular groups.Baudrillard (1995), however, arguesrepresentations shouldn't be considered interms of whether something is fairly or unfairlyrepresented because how something isrepresented is its reality.

Social Construction of News

Conventional approaches suggest the mediare-presents something like ‘news’ in a way that’ssomehow different to the original event;‘something happens’ that is then described (re-presented) to an audience. Conventionally,therefore, sociologists contrast ‘the real’ - the‘thing’ that ‘happened’ - with its representationand examine the media to see if they candisentangle the real from the not real.

Baudrillard however suggests "reality" isexperienced differently depending on who youwere, where you are and your source ofinformation. Every audience, therefore,ultimately constructs its own version of realityand everything represented in the media isexperienced as multiple realities, all of which -and none of which - are real; everything is arepresentation of something seen from differentviewpoints. Thus, the reality of anything can’t befound in any single definitive account orexperience

Baudrillard uses the term hyperreality toexpress how different narrative accountsinterweave and conflict in an ever-changingpattern of representation-built-upon-representation until they form a ‘reality’ inthemselves – something "more real than reality"

since our knowledge of ‘reality’ is itself theproduct of different representations. Eachreality, therefore, is constructed from the wayindividuals pick-and-choose different ideas tosuit their own particular prejudices or beliefs.

To talk about media representations asdistortions of some hidden or obscured ‘reality’(‘deep structures’) misses the point: The mediadon’t simply ‘mediate the message’ throughrepresentations; as McCluhan (1992) argues"they are the message".

This idea is important in relation to somethinglike the social construction of news since newsreporting involves a representation of reality thatFiske (1987) calls the transparency fallacy – arejection of the idea news reporting represents aneutral ‘window on the world’ that objectivelyreports events as they unfold. The worldrepresented through the media is always andinevitably a reconstructed reality – one filteredthrough a media lens that is no more and noless objective than any other reality filter.

Postmodernists argue power, in terms of controlover the production and distribution ofinformation, is no longer concentrated withininstitutions, but within social networks, whereinformation is produced and consumed by thesame people. Information flows betweendifferent points (nodes) within a network in sucha way as to make it impossible to distinguishbetween producer and consumer. This ideachallenges Marxist and Feminist notions ofpower as centred, on class and genderrespectively, and that misrepresentations flowfrom this centred control of information.

Lyotard (1984), for example, argues that inpostmodernity there are "many centres" and"none of them hold". In other words, inpostmodernity there are many centres ofinformation, each of which pumps-out differentrepresentations of categories like class, age,gender and ethnicity. Unlike in the past thereare no dominant forms of representationbecause there are no dominant forms of mediaanymore. What we have, in a media-saturatedsociety built on information structures andnetworks, is a series of shifting representationsof these categories.

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Simulacra and Hyperreality Lesson Outline

You can link the concepts of simulacra andhyperreality to other areas of the Specificationby asking your students to think about thingslike:

● Family Life: is “The family” a simulacra?

● Education: to what extent is the idea of “5good GCSE’s” a simulacrum of education?

● Religion: how is the concept of religion itselfa simulacrum?

● Sociological perspectives (such asFunctionalism, Marxism, Feminism andPostmodernism) - to what extent are theseboth simulacra and examples of hyperreality?

Summary

Simulacra and Hyperreality

1st order simulacraLess real than what it represents

Example: a painting

2nd order simulacraAs real as what it represents

Example: mobile phone

3rd order simulacraMore real (hyperreal) than what it represents

Examples: The Wild West / Disneyland

Film Clips

Through this text we’ve made reference to arange of film clips you might want to use toillustrate some of the ideas contained here.

You can find the following clips here (or here:https://youtu.be/ilps5xefBp8)

1. Mona Lisa - about 30 seconds of the painting

2. Iphone - 30 seconds of examples

3. Wild West - old Hollywood clips showingvarious aspects of “The Wild West” (gunfights,saloon brawls etc. (students might want tonote that both black people and women arerepresented - if at all - in periphery roles…)

4. Disneyworld - a quick tour around thedifferent “worlds”.

5. Wild West at Disneyland - the “Wild WestShows” at Disneyland are an example of“simulacra within simulacra”.

6. Real Food / Fictional Farms - short clipshowing how supermarkets have createdfictional farms to create the idea of “real food”that is actually sourced from a wide variety of(largely anonymous) global suppliers.

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