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2.4.1. Jean Baudrillard: Simulationism as Mediatheory

Jean BaudrillardStating that 'the poles of the real and the imaginary have imploded' the French Social Theorist or better one of the postmodern Déscartes, Jean Baudrillard describes the phenomenon of simulation in a much wider cultural context. For him reality becomes hyperreality of different order of simulacra. The prefix hyper becomes often used for terms with more dimensions than usual, e.g. hyperspace (mathematics description of space with more than three dimensions) or hyperchess (three-dimensional chess).

Baudrillard sees a development in history in three steps: from imitation (until 1880), to the step of production (until 1950) to the step of simulation, our situation today. He proclaimed for nowadays the rebellion of the signs, whereas signs do not bear a relation to any reality whatsoever: Signs are pure simulacra. "The real is produced from miniaturised units, from matrices, memory banks and command models - and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times. It no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance. It is nothing more than operational. In fact, since it is no longer enveloped by an imaginary, it is no longer real at all. It is hyperreal, the product of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere." (Baudrillard 1983:3)

For Baudrillard to simulate is not just to fake or feign something, but to make something more real than real. Simulation can be seen in contrast to dissimulation, as a form of feigning or deception:

"To dissimulate is to feign not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn't. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But the matter is more complicated, since to simulate is not simply to feign: 'Someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and make believe he is ill. Some [sic] who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms.'(Littre) Thus, feigning or dissimulating leaves the reality principle intact: the difference is always clear, it is only masked; whereas simulation threatens the difference between 'true' and 'false', between 'real' and 'imaginary'. Since the simulator produces 'true' symptoms, is he ill or not? He cannot be treated objectively either as ill, or as not-ill." (ibid.:5)

Through the glasses of simulation it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the realms of the true and false, appearance and reality, secrecy and transparency. Simulated reality becomes hyperreality and "It is finally impossible to distinguish truth from fiction, real and unreal, the production of goods from the production of signs, persons from their holographic images or bionic reconstructions, or societies from their reincarnations over electronic nets." (Bogard 1996: 11)

"Simulation is the collapse of the real with the imaginary, the true with the false. Simulation does not provide equivalents for the real, nor does it reproduce it, it reduplicates and generates it. The very definition of the real becomes that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not just what can be reproduced, but what is always already reproduced. This is the hyperreal - the more real than real."(Horrocks, Jevtic 1996: 109)

The hyperreal therefore even precedes the real. The stage of simulation does not leave the reality principle intact.

In taking a closer look at Baudrillard's theory it becomes obvious, that he is far from being a social theorist. Who can be a social theorist who exclaims, that the social has already disappeared? It is far more reasonable to view him as a mediatheorist looking at the worlds through the glasses of simulation and hyperreality. He started his mediatheory already in 1972 with his 'Requiem for the media', stating that there is nothing like a mediatheory and cannot be because if one wants to understand media, one has to get rid off the idea that media create communication. There is nothing like an exchange between transmitter and receiver, there is only transmission. To understand media, one has to destroy them first. (Compare Bilwet 1993: 247)

However through the later introduction of the concept of the fatal strategy and the concept of simulation he developed a powerful mediatheory and had his real coming out as mediatheorist during the GULFWAR: Theory for him means: "to set up a trap with the hope that reality is naive enough to get trapped." (quoted by Bilwet 1993: 251 -transl. S.J.) because the objects live an independent life and follow a fatal strategy.

Baudrillard's notion of simulation blew the boundary between science and fiction: "Science fiction can be read as a sort of social theory, while Baudrillard's futuristic postmodern social theory can be read in turn as science fiction." (Kellner quoted by Featherstone; Burrows 1995: 9).

So if you now decide this pseudo-scientific text here is as real as a fairytale, why not let Cyberhobbit guide you through the landscape of mediatheory. Click here for the fairytale Cyberhobbit .

 

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