Simulacrum

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A simulacrum (pl.: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin

Original Philosophy

Mole & Thomas, Human Statue of Liberty (1919)—12,000 people in the flame of the torch, 6,000 in the rest of the shape. Plato was referring to an optical illusion such as this in his discussion of simulacra.

Simulacra have long been of interest to philosophers. In his

Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed. This example from the visual arts serves as a metaphor for the philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to distort the truth so that it appears accurate unless viewed from the proper angle.[5] Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in the Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality.[6]

French

social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues in Simulacra and Simulation that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no original or no longer has an original, since a simulacrum signifies something it is not, and therefore leaves the original unable to be located. Where Plato saw two types of representation—faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which "bears no relation to any reality whatsoever".[7] In Baudrillard's concept, like Nietzsche's, simulacra are perceived as negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic, Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which an accepted ideal or "privileged position" could be "challenged and overturned".[8] Deleuze defines simulacra as "those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal resemblance".[9]

Alain Badiou, in speaking with reference to Nazism about Evil, writes,[10] "fidelity to a simulacrum, unlike fidelity to an event, regulates its break with the situation not by the universality of the void, but by the closed particularity of an abstract set ... (the 'Germans' or the 'Aryans')".

According to the philosopher Florent Schoumacher,[11] in societies of hypermodernity, in the West, the social contract states that we are obliged to use “simulacra”. We are carried there by hubris (hubris). However, the contemporary notion of simulacrum assumes that we all have a biased relationship with the reality of the world, not because reality is not accessible, but because we wish not to see things as they appear. The philosopher nevertheless emphasizes that our capacity for aphairesis, our capacity for representing the world, does indeed exist.

Recreation

Recreational simulacra include

Walt Disney World Resort is a copy of a copy, or "a simulacrum to the second power".[12] In 1975, Italian author Umberto Eco argued that at Disney's parks, "we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it".[13] Examining the impact of Disney's simulacrum of national parks, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, environmentalist Jennifer Cypher and anthropologist Eric Higgs expressed worry that "the boundary between artificiality and reality will become so thin that the artificial will become the centre of moral value".[14] Eco also refers to commentary on watching sports as sports to the power of three, or sports cubed. First, there are the players who participate in the sport (the real), then the onlookers merely witnessing it, and finally the commentary on the act of witnessing the sport. Visual artist Paul McCarthy
has created entire installations based on Pirates of the Caribbean and theme park simulacra, with videos playing inside the installation.

Caricature

An interesting example of simulacrum is caricature. When an artist produces a line drawing that closely approximates the facial features of a real person, the subject of the sketch cannot be easily identified by a random observer; it can be taken for a likeness of any individual. However, a caricaturist exaggerates prominent facial features, and a viewer will pick up on these features and be able to identify the subject, even though the caricature bears far less actual resemblance to the subject.

Iconography

Beer (1999: p. 11) employs the term "simulacrum" to denote the formation of a sign or iconographic image, whether

human psychology
.

As artificial beings

Simulacra often appear in

artificial life forms
include:

Also, the illusions of absent loved ones created by an alien life form in

Stanislaw Lem's Solaris
can be considered simulacra.

Architecture

Architecture is a special form of simulacrum.

In his book Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard describes the Beaubourg effect in which the Pompidou Centre functions as a monument of a mass simulation that absorbs and devours all the cultural energy from its surrounding areas. According to Baudrillard, the Centre Pompidou is "a machine for making emptiness".[16]

An everyday use of the simulacrum are the false facades, used during renovations to hide and imitate the real architecture underneath it.

A Potemkin village is a simulation: a facade meant to fool the viewer into thinking that he or she is seeing the real thing. The concept is used in the Russian-speaking world as well as in English and in other languages. Potemkin village belongs to a genus of phenomena that proliferated in post-Soviet space. Those phenomena describe gaps between external appearances and underlying realities.[17]

Disneyland – Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulacra. [...] Play of illusions and phantasms.[18]

Las Vegas – the absolute advertising city (of the 1950s, of the crazy years of advertising, which has retained the charm of that era.)[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Word of the Day". dictionary.com. 1 May 2003. Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
  2. ^ "simulacrum" The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1993
  3. ^ a b Massumi, Brian. "Realer than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari." Archived 23 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 2 May 2007
  4. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations. transl. Sheila Faria Glaser. "XI. Holograms." Archived 27 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 5 May 2010
  5. ^ Plato. The Sophist. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Archived from the original on 30 December 2005. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
  6. ^ Nietzsche, Friedrich (1888). "Reason in Philosophy". Twilight of the Idols. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. Archived from the original on 26 April 2007. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
  7. ^ Baudrillard Simulacra retrieved 2 May 2007. Archived 9 February 2004 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Deleuze, Gilles (1968). Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton. Columbia: Columbia University Press. p. 69.
  9. ^ p. 299.
  10. ^ Badiou, Alain (2001). Ethics - An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. Translated by Peter Hallward. London: Verso. p. 74.
  11. ^ Schoumacher, Florent (2024). Eîdolon: Simulacre et hypermodernité. Paris: Balland.
  12. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. transl. Francois Debrix. Liberation. 4 March 1996. "Disneyworld Company." Archived 27 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 5 May 2010.
  13. ^ Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Reproduced in relevant portion at "The City of Robots" Archived 12 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 2 May 2007
  14. ^ Cypher, Jennifer and Eric Higgs. "Colonizing the Imagination: Disney's Wilderness Lodge". Archived 4 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 2 May 2007
  15. .
  16. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser. University of Michigan Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780472065219.
  17. , retrieved 5 May 2022
  18. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser. University of Michigan Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780472065219.
  19. ^ Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser. University of Michigan Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780472065219.

External links