Post Modernity VS Modernity:

Fredric Jameson Speech:

Do we live in a hyper-real world? Baudrillard Discussion:

Jean Baudrillard was a renounced French Philosopher, socialist and cultural theorist whose work is often associated with Post modernism. His best known work is a series of essays called Simulacra and Simulation- these primarily discuss images, signs and symbols and in these essays he claimed that our current society had replaced reality with such things as symbols and signs. This argument is based primarily on the idea that due to our society being completed saturated in images we have not only replaced referents, this being an object in the real world, with their visual representations or images but also with images that make no reference to reality or the referent in the first place, this is called a simulacrum. Therefore Baudrillard’s main argument consists of the belief that due to this complete saturation in images we now ‘consume’ images that are in fact images of images, or simulacrum and therefore no longer live in ‘reality’ or ‘truth’. This in turn leads to the idea of hyper-reality, a condition where reality had ultimately been replaced by ‘simulacra’ and where because such images no longer relate back to their existing referents reality has been substituted. This idea can be demonstrated through the use of an example involving an apple where the genuine apple would be the referent, an image of the apple would be its visual representation whilst the logo of the company apple would be an example of a simulacrum. The meaning of this logo does in no way, except by name, relate back to the referent and therefore we can use this as evidence to support the idea as a society we now live in a hyper real world, were nothing is in fact ‘real’ anymore due to the fact reality and truth in meaning have been distorted and subverted and things that used to represent something now can mean several various, different things. This leads to Baudrillard’s belief that we no longer live in a ‘real world’ but in fact a ‘copy’ world, where as a society we week simulated stimuli and nothing more. To a degree this is a true, the example of the apple portrays how things can have several meanings that do not relate back to their referents or in any way connect to each other and in this way it can be said we live in a ‘hyper real’ copy world however Baudrillard used this argument as evidence for his own extreme belief that didn’t take place and only a ‘simulacra’ of war happened. In this way I don’t believe we live in a hyper real world as though things may not have ‘true’ meaning any more this goes as far to apply to images and some situations however not as denial for war, something which arguably has scientific proof backing it whereas if we believe we live in a world that has been replaced by ‘simulacra’ in terms of images this cannot be proved by scientific means. However I do believe that there are many ways in which we do in fact live in a hyper real world, for example Disneyland, in which theorists such as Baudrillard argued were an exemplar of hyper reality. He believes that it is made to look realistic in terms of the streets and housing however this false reality creates a desirable illusion to people where Disneyland satisfies our, more specifically children’s, imaginations and day dream fantasies in real life. However this is once again an example of how reality has been substituted, the things people see in Disneyland such as the fake animals are available to see in real life, in terms of nature however because they have been given persona’s which in itself is hyper real we, as an audience are ‘sucked’ in by it and in some ways believe it and all the surroundings are real even though they could not be farther from their ‘referents’ or reality in general. Additionally it can be said we live in a hyper-real world due to the technological advances which allow such things for example a television, even though this appears pretty basic in terms of advancements, both TV and film rely heavily on the audience to engage in a creation of a world of fantasy they in fact create and by engaging with such a world for example soap operas and dramas we ultimately live in a hyper real reality as such things, or ‘fantasy worlds’ become parts of our lives: we need to know if Kat will lose her baby in East Enders for example because she is part of our own world in a way and this demonstrates a loss of reality . Other technological advances include the air brushing of models and by ‘enhancing’ such images were are not being confronted with reality but what other people perceive to almost be a ‘better’ reality.