The Development of the PC Computer Industry

Simulation & Hyperreality

Jean Baudrillard The Precession of Simulacra, 1980Lecture OutlineBaudrillards concepts of simulation and hyperreality

Examples of simulation and hyperreality

The impact of simulation and hyperreality on everyday life and experienceWhat is a simulation?A model, an image, a virtual thing, some kind of fiction or artifice

Baudrillards definitionSimulations are: models of aReal without origin or reality:a hyperrealityThe four stages of simulationStage OneInitially, the sign (i.e. image or represent.) is a reflection of a basic reality.

Ansel Adams Horse Racing by Edgar Degas

The four stages of simulationStage TwoThe sign masks a basic reality. The image becomes a distortionof reality.

The four stages of simulationStage ThreeThe sign masks the absence of a basic reality.

The image calls in to question whatthe reality is and if it even exists.The four stages of simulationStage FourThe sign bears no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum.

Example: Cottinghams simulated image of the boys.

Digital Photography

Traditional PhotographyIn photography, there is a one-way logical relationship between:

the thing and its photographic image the original and the copy

Digital PhotographyDigital simulations undermine the one-way logic of the original and its image:

In a digital photograph there is no necessary origin or actuality which the image reflects, or to which the image refers

Pure Land byMariko Mori, 1997-98

Simulated imagesSimulated images break the assumed link between reality and representation

Simulation produces images of things which appear real out of nothing.Simulated images

Chtulhu People, Image #d6, Gulnur Guvenc, Adobe Photoshop

Simulated imagesPrincipal consequence: the truth value, evidentiary status and objectivity that is traditionally ascribed to photographs no longer applies.

The image is pure digital information, endlessly manipulableand remote from any pre-existingreality.

What does all this mean?Various simulations of reality images, fictions, artifice etc are eclipsing or displacing reality itself.

The boundary between fiction, images and artifice on the one hand, and reality or truth on the other hand, has become blurred.Kate Winslett / Jennifer Lopez Covers

Virtual Environments, GamesThe SimsWOWSecond Life, etc.

Virtual Environments, GamesWoman Kills Virtual HusbandThe Precession of SimulacraMedia images, simulations and the hyperreal precede our experience of the real.

We experience simulations before we experience the real thing. These experiences and perceptions shape the way we see reality.The Precession of SimulacraImages of great artworks take precedence over the actual artwork, which often pales by comparisonEx: Michelangelos Sistine Chapel, etc.

The Precession of SimulacraArmchair tourism - Getaway, Lonely Planet - we typically see media images of the world before we see the real thing

Precession of SimulacraDigitally alteredimages of womenin magazines determine how real women wish to look

Precession of SimulacraPlastic surgery simulations - try before you buy

Hyperreal Becomes New RealityBaudrillard: signs of the real are substituted for the real itself

In the end, the signs of the real (i.e. simulations) come to take precedence over the real itself.Reality Television The stuff of reality becomes the storyfood for the fictional televisual world.

"You no longer watch TV, TV watches you.

- Jean BaudrillardReality TelevisionReal people in real situations are used instead of actors:

How real is reality TV?Reality TV might use real people but they put them in contrived rather than real situations. Events are set up and manipulated.

Real people are selectively represented, often manipulated and staged as caricatures.

When they are being filmed by a television or video camera, real people act.The Truman Show MoviePeter Wiers 1998film The TrumanShow is theultimate realityTV show!

Simulacrum is TrueWe cannot know or experience reality beyond our own experience. In a sense there is no reality beyond our own experience.ConclusionOur experience of reality is increasingly mediated (viewed through the lens of a variety of media forms)

These mediated simulations of reality are starting to displace reality and to shape our perception of itConclusionDigital technologies are increasing the scope and seductive power of simulation technologies

In the future, digital technologies such as virtual reality will increasingly blur the boundary between the real and the imaginary (virtual)Conclusionsimulation threatens the differencebetween the true and the false,the real and the imaginary

- Jean BaudrillardDove Commercialhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Erik Johansson Impossible Photographyhttp://www.ted.com/talks/erik_johansson_impossible_photography.html