Detailed Simulacra & Simulations

So what if we imagine the real and the simulacra. Isn't the simulacra the same as the real to the person who is within the simulacra? We imagine that it would have to seem like reality to this person or it simply wouldn't be a simulacra. At this point the conversation ends abruptly, it just becomes a case of circular logic and our ability to see or imagine any further is stopped short. This person is rendered practically powerless, and in maintaining such a relativistic and nihilistic view really serves to benefit those in society who are powerful.

But what if you were an outside observer looking in, how would this situtation look? Between real and what could be termed, simulation, we are aware that something is a copy. We can see enough similarities to connect the copy to the original but also detect differences that show it is not exactly the same as the original. Any simulation of the real would be apparent both whether you observed some phenomena directly or you observed someone else observing that same phenomena. Obviously, each observer wouldn't read the text exactly the same but fundamentally each reading would exhibit similar traits. But the next step would be different. What occurs between simulation and simulacra that is different to what occurs between real and simulation? This is where it gets more complicated. With the step from simulation to simulacra, unlike the step from real to simulation, it makes a difference as to whether you observe directly or you gaze upon, or imagine someone else observing.  In addition, this step is not just a move from one state to another but may also be perceived as a difference in perspective or awareness between two separate identities.

The simulacra is also a simulation of sorts, but rather than just acting as a second simulation against a previous simulation for some, it is also a simulation which for others acts on the individual in terms of perception or awareness.  To the outside observer who is aware, the simulacra looks like a world which is hyperreal or has mutated in some way, a world which is more real than reality itself while at the same time is somehow unreal. There is a component of awareness here held by the viewer in relation to the hyperreals' difference to both the real and the simulation.  Additionally, this observer can view that difference in both positive and negative terms, ie. as hyperreal (more than real) or as unreal (less than real). Whereas the simulation proper both compares and contrasts itself to the real, in what measure or to what percentage I cannot say, its overall effect is considered as inferior to the real, that is, the simulated copy has less value than the original.

On the other hand, as mentioned, the hyperreal is still a simulated effect because we can recognise it as something other than the real, and like the original simulation it makes points of both comparison and contrast, but differs from the initial simulation because it is both inferior and superior to the real at the same time, again remember unreal and hyperreal. What actually occurs then during this second simulation from this hyperreal/unreal perspective? It is not simply a reversal of the initial simulation, it is something different because we have not returned to the real, we have arrived instead at the hyperreal. It would seem that the second simulation splits in two and does two separate things at the same time, like a simultaneous dual simulation. One simulation it seems is produced from within the previous simulation, so this would explain the inferior, unreal, weaker or watered-down aspect of the final hyperreal outcome. This we can imagine as a continuous line travelling in one direction forging the frontiers. This simulation simply travels from the point of the initial single simulation to the point of the hyperreal.

But how would we explain what the second simulation does, how do we end up with a hyperreal rather than an unreal outcome in the hyperreal? Could we say that the second twin simulation, rather than just moving straight to the position of the hyperreal, actually resimulates itself once again against the real (refuelling on reality or morality for the frontier so to speak) in order to produce a new and completely unrelated simulation to the first? We could imagine this perhaps as the second simulation moving backward to the real and repeating the first leg of the journey before completing the same leg as the first twin. Effectively, the second twin has covered around three times the distance of the first in the journey from simulation to hyperreal and travels in an ever widening circle rather than just a line as the frontier expands.  Could we perceive the single leg journey as having occurred in real time and the triple leg as moving much quicker to cover three times the distance in the same time?  Could we also say that the triple leg portion becomes thicker with data having covered three times the distance or would we have to say that this portion is in fact thinner or more incoherent as it has collected the same amount of data as the single leg but rather over a much longer or wider range of available data and data-types?

But how is it then that in the hyperreal we can see both hyperreal and unreal? How is it that we can see both these elements within the same image? Is the second simulation moderately transparent in some way that when layered over the top of the first simulation we can witness elements of both at the same time?  Additionally, the second simulation seems to be posited as the superior and the first simulation as the inferior in this hyperreal scenario? So the second simulation is passified with the apparent glory of being superior yet does all the work! In terms of space, the first twin utilises a smaller space for its work but likewise uses much less energy and is requied to cover much less distance than the second twin. This all seems somewhat reminiscient of Latour's 'Trains of Thought'! How else would we account for the apparent incongruence of the hyperreal and unreal which has been forced to fit within the hyperreal scenario.

Is this the capital machine that Baudrillard speaks of? Is the imperative of the machine to work more efficiently by trying to make the weaker work harder while those who do not work have become spacejunk cast away from earth with no use value, judged to be only dead weight?  Meanwhile, the strong forge ahead at the expense and work of everyone else?

But what about the direct observer who doesn't see hyperreal but is within the simulacra seeing only the real? How would this person see or interpret the transition from simulation to simulacra? This is a change which wouldn't be detected by the direct observer in the same way as the outside observer. This unaware person would be aware that they are no longer in a simulation because such a contrived duplication would be obvious. But this person would assume therefore that they have returned to the real only as a result of the absence of simulation. If that person for example had never actually witnessed the real real and only knew of simulation, then hyperreal would seem more real than simulation. From this perspective, the hyperreal would become the real and simulation would simply move out of view, the notion of a real real not even ever having been conceived.  As such, this person would only see that which represents difference to simulation.  (Thus becoming blind to the similarities with simulation and both the similarities and differences with the real as an outside observer would perceive).  In this sense then, where the unaware observer would perceive only a move away from simulation and assume therefore a move toward the real, the aware observer would perceive the other as having moved only further away from the real.

Furthere, because the unaware observer has never known of a real real the aware observer cannot impose the perspective of any move from simulation to simulacra as being imagined by the unaware observer as a reversal from simulation to the real.  Even though, from the perspective of the aware observer, there is a temptation to do so.  As such, it becomes apparent that there are two types of aware observers?  There are the ones who imagine they look at the Other from the perspective of the Other and those that look at the perspective of the Other simply from their own perspective.  Or perhaps stated as those who are aware and those who think they are aware.  But are those who think they are aware the same as those who are unaware?

This piece is still in BETA form.  I have to really think about all these things, but have to have a wee break from it!

Confused & Thinking...Ramblings

Ok, so just reflecting on Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulations.  I'm thinking that to say that the real isn't or never was real as such but only exists in its negation is a kind of a contradiction but also kind of makes sense.  The real seems to exist and not exist at the same time depending upon which level of the 'real' you're looking at?  In this sense, the real seems imagined, just as is the ideal?  But is the reality of the real really that nothing exists (or that everything exists) and that our world of reality within the space that we can actually think, is a fabrication of sorts so that we can make some sense of the world?  In effect, we are kind of intentionally making our 'space' smaller (in order to create space) and thereby implementing boundaries so that we can create some form of meaning in our lives because innately in fact there is none?

We know that this somewhat fabricated boundary is not the entire 'truth', but we figure that a smaller amount of slightly distorted 'truth' is better than being able to glean absolutely nothing from much more data than the human brain can make sense of.  At what point did society become aware of the huge volume of data out there?  And at what point did society become unaware of the futility and loss in trying to understand it all?  Without this small portion of something, there is everything and nothing, too much and too little.  Is this like Freud's notion of 'aim inhibition'?  This scenario seems to suggest that you need to give up the notion of having less of 'everything' in order to at least attain more of 'something'.  As a society, we've forgotten it seems that it is optimal and necessary to 'settle'.  Likewise, we've forgotten the risk involved in opting for what seems like a 'better' life, and that by so doing we are required to gamble everything that we have.  This seems also somewhat reminiscent of game theory.

From the premise that everything exists, a blank slate upon which nothing exists would be necessary in order to begin to make sense.  To conceive of a blank slate as being innate is impossible, how would you be able to build anything without even the barest of codes to direct any forthcoming data?  How could phenomena emerge from nowhere, it would seem logical that you would need some type of 'matter' along with some sort of 'directed' 'force'.  On the other hand, to conceive of a blank slate as a constructed 'overlay' for the purpose of designing a world where meaning is made makes more sense.  Would the notion of a 'blank slate' mark the point at which we originally became human?  But how would you invisage of creating the means to think if you didn't already hold the capacity to do so?  Or perhaps it was at the point at which we became more attuned to or placed more value on our thoughts over our feelings?  This would have to have been the result of a slow evolution that somehow involuntarily yet persistently maintained a force or capacity to move to a point where its momentum could be 'locked-in' and embedded through the practice of rituals, customs, ethics, morals, routines, habits, religion, philosopy, science etc.

And yet we all see the world differently, we each carry a different vision of reality.  Rather than all being in one large 'bubble', could we all be in our own individual bubbles?  Either way, we all must still have access to something other than ourselves in order to change and to imagine.  Do we all still have access to the everything (but which in terms of humanity is considered nothing) which we dip into intermittently somehow?  Or do we all swap information and kind of exchange 'visions' with each other whenever we interact, each of us already 'carrying' a portion from the pool of everything that we already and always have embedded within our identity?  Or do we activate in each other through interaction the dormant data stored within each others identity's?

This suggests that anything outside of (human) identity doesn't exist or in terms of humanity has become nothing.  So this is saying that only what humans carry (culture) exists or thinks or lives?  What about animals and objects, they exist.  Animals are alive, a table isn't.  But they both exist.  The table is an extension of human life, it carries codes and data about human life that will be carried and reinterpreted through time.  And what about automated and programmed forms of technology?  Is this what space is ie. all the matter that isn't considered useful or relevant to being human?  Like all the atoms and particles and chemical elements filling space that we can't see are considered separate and unrelated to being human and don't exist?  But force takes up space, is force also matter?  It kind of is.  Something needs to be something in order to do something to something.  It can't be nothing doing something to something.  With the same token, that very 'space' gives us life as we draw it in and out of our lungs.

Jean Baudrillard I'm understanding to be discussing a reversal or unravelling of this process which has apparently begun to occur with the industrial revolution, then the mass adoption of television and likewise later the personal computer.  Simulacra and simulations seems to map a loss of awareness or knowledge about why we originally constructed our sense making reality.  But I've just watched the Matrix and I think that it suggests that the apparent discourse about 'too much data' of the sense making reality is in fact a means by which to stop us from thinking and to keep us within a state of control and passivity.  I'd just like to finish some other ideas I've been working on this week on Simulacra and Simulations, then I'd like to look more into the idea of The Matrix.  It's interesting though that I wrote this blog after my next blog which looks in much more detail about simulacra and simulations yet this blog comes first chronologically.  Thinking about Baudrillard's detailed discussion on Simulacra and Simulations somehow seemed to have the power to transport me back in time and to think about origins!

Simulacra & Simulations

I enjoyed this reading.  Jean Baudrillard proposes the notion that there never was a 'real', only a representation of a real, nothing more.  This is an interesting idea to think about, that the only notion of a 'real' has ever been represented by the pretence of its negation, in effect, the pretence alone is what is 'real'.  That a notion of the 'real' is or need be 'defended' is alone what embeds its own reality.  Effectively, the defence of the 'real' is the only trace of any existence of the real while at the same time becomes the real (p169).

The other idea I found incredibly interesting was the idea of the real being equal to the notion of the simulacra.  A simulation on the other hand possesses some semblance or trace of a notion of the 'real' but with a simulacra, all awareness of the 'real' is forsaken already.  I approached these ideas initially in a line ie. real, simulation, simulacra, but they can also be perceived as a cycle where the real and the simulacra form a type of feedback loop.  If we imagine the simulacra, the 'lost' trace and the inability to reverse, from the perspective of the 'other', then we effectively kind of place ourselves in that position and at the same time recover the 'lost'.  We 'become' the position of 'lost awareness', we are looking from the perspective of being unaware of (blind to) what we have lost (whilst can simultaneously look from the perspective/idea of a notion of being aware of the potential for others to lose knowledge).  In this way, the real and the simulacra is the same 'thing' alternatively from a personal perspective and then from the position of the 'other'.  The simulation, on the other hand, still has a link or trace (granted waning) from/to the real however.  I loved this idea and had never really thought about simulacra, or the real for that matter, in this way, but Baudrillard raises an interesting idea here that I can easily imagine/conceive of (p168).

As such, Baudrillard seems to be saying that although the real and the simulacra seem to be interchangeable somehow (from an external perspective), the simulacra, by its very nature, once achieved cannot be reversed (from an internal perspective),  he states, '...never again exchanging for what is real, but exchanging in itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference'.  The simulacra is not 'unreal' but rather a unidirectional precession of the real.  This idea, however, is extended upon the premise that the sign and the real are one and the same thing.  Within an analogue age there seems to be potentially so much scope for interpretation between the two that such a comparison would seem rather deterministic.  In the digital age, however, the sign and the real have moved closer together, reducing this discursive space, and it is anticipated that over time will continue to do so.  Baudrillard explains this in stating that representation discredits simulation by interpreting it as false representation, whereas simulation interprets the entire notion of representation as already a simulacrum (p170).

Reference:

Baudrillard, J 1988, 'Simulacra and simulations', in Selected Writings, Polity, Cambridge

The 'Post-Industrial Journalism' reading: Anderson/Bell/Shirky

The introduction discusses the recent decline in the 'pairing' of journalism and publishing with the advertising industry.  Traditionally, journalism was supported by advertising costs, but with the internet, advertisers can now find more cost effective alternatives.  The authors (Anderson, Bell & Shirky) state that the relationship between journalism and advertising was never based on anything more than the premise of how each could assist the other in generating its own profit.  For the first time since the 1830's, journalism can no longer depend on advertising support and must find new ways in which to survive financially.  Specifically, journalism must produce a new business model (p2&4-6).

The authors state that there is still a place in society for professional journalism and reporting.  It is suggested that in contrast to reporting on celebrities etc. it is still important that 'hard' news is reported and this is best provided by professional journalists rather than social media sites or citizen journalism, although the latter also plays a social role.  The reading describes hard news specifically as the news that somebody, somewhere doesn't want reported (p3-4).

With the uptake of the internet, it is no longer a publisher's market but rather that of the advertiser.  The advertiser has greater bargaining power because of the huge range of cheap advertising choices available online.  Yet some companies even find it more profitable to provide extra services to their customers than to pay for advertising, such as Amazon providing its customers with free delivery.  Amazon also deals with a good deal of its own advertising through customer and reader recommendations.  Hence, journalism has to find new ways to pay its journalists and reporters, and Government funding isn't really an option since the traditional role of the media in a democracy is to remain separated from government performing its role as Fourth Estate (p5&9).  However, within a new global network even this role itself is questioned.

The authors state, however, that professional journalism has always been subsidised in some way and that markets have never been able to keep up with the amount of news that democracy demands.  It is suggested that people will always be willing to pay for online professionally reported news and there are some instances where people are willing to pay for news which is free of any advertising.  Wealthy citizens are willing to publish at a loss in exchange for the prestige and influence which the news industry traditionally carries.  Additionally, the government also prohibits some industries from direct online marketing which would limit such industries, for example the car industry, to more traditional forms of brand advertising.  Crowdsourcing is another suggestion, also sponsors, donors and patrons (p5-6).

Alternatively, another possible way to think about the journalism/advertising relationsip, however, is in reverse.  Many news outlets today are in the advertising business rather than the news business, or rather, advertising companies use the news to legitimate their products or reach a particular audience.  News, in effect, could be sold to advertisers to make their 'advertisements' appear less like 'advertising' and more like news (p5-6).

As such, much of this entire shift within the advertising industry it seems is perpetuated via an imperative for greater profit.  The advertising industry has evidently found an easier way to generate greater profit in the online world and is concerned less about journalistic integrity or public interest.  Integrity and public interest don't comply with the logic of the market, not directly or in the short term anyway.  More traditional forms of verticle integration are more expensive and prove less competitive.  It works out much more efficient for companies to specialise in one thing and to target a large online market rather than to augment their product range and target a specific segment.  Similarly, traditional forms of horizontal integration in the news business such as 'bundling hard news with horoscopes, gossip, recipes, sports...' (p8) counted on the inertia of the reader to consult a single publication, but with online links and feeds it is just as easy to read selected stories across many publications.  It is even easier still to position the vast majority of your information needs within your online circle of friends (p7-10).

Much of the shift also seems to focus on connectivity rather than the content itself.  We are willing to pay an ISP for online social connectivity where we generate our own content, but are less willing to pay for content generated by journalists on hard news.  Similarly, we are also willing to pay for music and movies online rather than using radio and television which are free (p8).  When it comes to advertising, the logic of brand advertising cannot compete with direct marketing (p11).  The question remains, however, will 'brand advertising' be reinvented online?  The authors suggest a means of building brand awareness of a product via animated graphics or time in the video stream itself (p10).

The book states further that any move toward direct marketing is a victory for 'measurement'.  Brand advertising remains elusive and is unable to be measured, how it operates exactly remains a mystery as its 'effect' is deferred and indirect.  As such, brand advertising is unable to be optimised, however, online businesses and direct marketing continually search for a means by which to measure brand advertising (p10).  Yet the entire notion of 'the public' and 'the audience' itself can be contested.  What constitutes 'the public' encompasses such a vast array of people that they cannot be essentially or identically grouped.  Likewise, the role of journalist and audience is interchangeable, and clear delineations between the two categories never occur in this way anymore anyway (p15).

Reference:

Anderson, C W Bell, E Shirky, C 2012, Post-Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present, Columbia Journalism School, New York