Baudrillard and the Hyper-real

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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

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What is real?
Old question Plato Writing Consumer
Society Media Images Technology
Welcome . . .
. . . to the order of the simulacra
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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
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Baudrillards antecedents
Karl Marx (1818-1883) Use Value--utilitarian
value Exchange Value--value of object in exchange
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) Symbolic value--The
Gift consumption wasteful social interactions
can not be reduced to utility
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) Conspicuous
Consumption prestige through wastefulness
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Political Economy of Signs
Le Système des objects, 1968 La Sociètè de la
consommation, 1970 For a Critique of the
Political Economy of the Sign, 1972
Four Logics of the object Practical
Operations--use value--utility--instrument Equival
ence--exchange value--the market--commodity Ambiva
lence--symbolic exchange--the gift--symbol Differe
nce--sign value--status--sign
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Sign Value
Value is assigned primarily through the logic of
the sign Thus, an objects relationships to
other objects are emphasized Value of an object
is determined through relationships to other
objects and not through utility
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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
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Computers
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Main-frame

• 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

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Batch processing

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

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Talking to the Univac
Interface Cards and Key-punch
IBM 026 Card Punch
Machine Case 1107
http//inventors.about.com/education/inventors/gi/
dynamic/offsite.htm?sitehttp//www.fourmilab.ch/d
ocuments/univac/cards.html
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Transistors

• 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

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DEC

• 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

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Microchip

• Microcomputers created to help liberate the
  computer from the high priests of computing
• Can only be done with a technology developed by
  the military industrial complex
• Computer as a package of transistors
• Production and consumption mixed up

Intel 8080, CPU for Altair
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Whats real
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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
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The Code 2
With binary data, however . . .
The natural has been by passed What is the
distinction between the copy and the original?
The code
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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.
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.
The very definition of real is that of which
it is possible to provide an equivalent
reproduction.
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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.