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