Baudrillard and the Hyper-real “Irreality no longer belongs to the dream or the phantasm... But to the hallucinatory resemblance of the real to itself”

What is real? Old question— Plato Writing Consumer Society Media Images Technology Welcome to the order of the simulacra

Jean Baudrillard Professor of Sociology at Nanterre 1960s-1987 Initially concerned with Media and Consumption Breaks with Marxism in 1973 (Mirror of Production) Eventually identified with Postmodernism mis-identified, really

Baudrillard’s antecedents Karl Marx ( ): Use Value--utilitarian value Exchange Value--value of object in exchange Marcel Mauss ( ): Symbolic value--The Gift consumption wasteful social interactions can not be reduced to utility Thorstein Veblen ( ): “Conspicuous Consumption” prestige through wastefulness

Political Economy of Signs Four Logics of the object: Practical Operations--use value--utility--instrument Equivalence--exchange value--the market--commodity Ambivalence--symbolic exchange--the gift--symbol Difference--sign value--status--sign Le Système des objects, 1968 La Sociètè de la consommation, 1970 For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, 1972

Sign Value Value is assigned primarily through the logic of the sign Thus, an object’s relationships to other objects are emphasized Value of an object is determined through relationships to other objects and not through utility

Implications Human beings : Do not search for happiness Do not search to realize equality Rather, preoccupied with lifestyles and values Consumption : Rarely fulfills basic needs Does not level or homogenize Rather, differentiates through a system of signs

Computers

Main-frame u Main-frame mid 1950s –Sign up –½ hour or so of access, run program –Computing time often cost $100/hr –Not an efficient use of expensive time

Batch processing u Up until 1960s, main form of optimizing computer time u Punch Cards –Submit to a receptionist –Programs ran through in “batches” –Collect results u Complex programs could take weeks to debug u Maximize Production

Talking to the Univac Interface: Cards and Key-punch Machine: Case 1107 IBM 026 Card Punch

Transistors u Late 1950s, TX-0 –1956, Lincoln Labs –First general all purpose programmable transistor computer –Better access –Paper tape reader –Fanciful, push machine to the limits »Aesthetic

DEC u 1961, PDP-1 –Designed for interactive use »IBM conservative in product development »Not for huge number crunching –Cheap, $120,000 –Easy to start –No 15 tons of air conditioning (tubes) –Easy to start up – Easy to program screen

Microchip u Microcomputers created to help liberate the computer from “the high priests” of computing u Can only be done with a technology developed by the “military industrial complex” u Computer as a “package” of transistors u Production and consumption mixed up Intel 8080, CPU for Altair

What’s real

“The Code” Symbolic Exchange and Death, 1976 Not Defined--meaning through context Distinction between production and reproduction obsolete Original Reproductions Production reproduces a “natural” object

The Code 2 With binary data, however... The codeThe code The “natural” has been by passed What is the distinction between the copy and the original?

Hyper-reality In the age of the copy of the copy, or the “simulacrum,” there is no difference between the real and the representation “everything becomes undecideable” nature/culture, beautiful/ugly, true/false “At the end of this process of reproducibility, the real is not only that which can be reproduced, but that which is already reproduce: the hyperreal.” “The very definition of real is that of which it is possible to provide an equivalent reproduction.” “ A kind of unintentional parody hovers over everything, a tactical simulation, a consummate aesthetic enjoyment, is attached to the indefinable play of reading and the rules of the game. Travelling signs, media, fashion and models, the blind but brilliant ambience of the simulacrum.”

Real? In the age of hyper-reality how real is most experience? Extreme experience as a means of convincing oneself that one is real But are you?... but this is true of everything in the age of Simulacrum.