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similarity to that reality and its
difference. With the start of the
industrial age, however, the
link between the object and its
representation became far less
clear, as the original object, or a
model of one, could be reproduced
hundreds or thousands of times.
Remaking reality
Baudrillard was aware of other
Marxist thinkers of the 1960s, such
as French theorist Guy Debord, who
had drawn attention to the shift
in cultural thinking that occurred
with the onset of mass production.
Debord notes that at this point in
history, “the whole life of those
societies... presents itself as
an... accumulation of spectacles.”
Thus life becomes condensed into
a set of recorded pictures: a family
wedding, a holiday in France, and
so on. People are more interested in
capturing the image—becoming
spectators—than in doing things:
the image, not the event, is central
(the modern obsession with taking
“selfies” emphasizes how pervasive
this has become).
Baudrillard points out that
through capitalism, commodities
also became detached from
themselves. Wheat was no longer
simply wheat, for instance, but a
good investment, or a breakfast
cereal. Presentation, not substance,
dictated value. This was the start
of the age of advertising, where the
message of the brand overtook the
reality of the substance in question.
Image became everything.Simplifying the world
Baudrillard followed the trajectory
of this bizarre world of images
and spectacles still further. As
technology progressed, he says,
it became obvious that there was
no need to refer to a real object or
model at all. The image—which
was originally abstracted from
something real—could now be
created from nothing. It did not
need to connect to or reflect
anything in the physical world
at all. This kind of image he calls
a “simulacrum.”
As long as an image or set of
images is reproducible, Baudrillard
maintains, it can create reality.
The real is “that which can be
reproduced.” Once images are
replicated and widely disseminated
(in magazines or websites, for
example), they create a shared
reality that people can discuss,
in a way that they cannot do with
the messy, unstructured physical
reality that we used to try toJEAN BAUDRILLARD
Second Life is a virtual world where
users re-create themselves digitally.
Online marketing advises: “Everyone...
is a real person and every place you
visit is built by people just like you.”engage with. They simplify the
world and make it manageable. In
addition, the reality they create is
more exciting and perfect in every
way than the one around us.Dangerous utopias
“Simulacra”—images that have
no original in reality—can be
produced to create a much more
satisfying effect than images
that reflect reality. An actress can
be “digitally enhanced” to look
closer to a culture’s ideal image
of womanhood, but even this refers
back to some kind of reality. For
this reason, Baudrillard says that
“the territory” of the real has not yet
disappeared entirely—fragments
remain. But people who find
pleasure in looking at these
enhanced images may find even
more pleasure in images that are
completely digitally created—that
do not refer back to a “real person”
at all. For example, we can look at
“perfect” digitally created peopleThe real is produced from
miniaturized units, from
matrices, memory banks, and
command models—and with
these it can be reproduced an
indefinite number of times.
Jean Baudrillard