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Examples of Simulation/Simulacra

All Acting Regiment

10:26 / 27.09.06

I'm reading Simulations by Baudrillard for the first time and I'm reasonably okay with it. However, while I find the Watergate example (corruption made out to be a scandal in order to hide the fact that it is no scandal because happening all the time) and the Disneyland example (adults acting like kids in Disneyland to make it look as if they're not kids outside of disneyland when actually they are) quite helpful, I was wondering if there are any other examples.

Also, my tutor keeps using The Matrix as a reference point. I'm not having a go at her for this because she's only trying to explain theory in terms we understand, but I think the Matrix is basically Mein Kampf for people with goatees and I was wondering if there are any better films that illustrate the same points without suggesting that reaching enlightenment/objective reality = it's cool to kill sheeple they are only machines11!1

12:04 / 27.09.06

I continue to find the implicit suggestion that The Matrix is a serious political and philosophical film just eeever so slightly ridiculous, and taking the violence of an effects movie so seriously as to compare it with Mein Kampf is definitely over the line.

That said, The Matrix does tap into myth, religion and philosophy as a satisfyingly pretentious backdrop for martial arts and gun porn in cool threads. I'm just not sure that I'd like to learn those things from it any more than I'd like to learn about AI by watching Terminator (oh and, FTR, I think it is totally, totally wrong to suggest that all AIs would want to do is kill humans).

Disco is My Class War

12:53 / 27.09.06

I think Bladerunner says something pretty neat about the inability to distinguish between 'real' humans and 'fake' humans (replicants) which is pretty similar to some of the Matrix's more Baudrillardian themes. Bladerunner was always a favourite film for my tutors to cite when talking about simulacra.

The Matrix's great distinction is that it rendered a representation of theories of the spectacle literal. You literally saw the rows of inert bodies 'living life' in a virtual reality. On the other hand, The Matrix hangs onto the fact that there's a material, meat world that may be impinged on and affected by virtuality, but still exists outside it. The idea with simulacra, as I understand it, is that there is no 'real'. Everything is a simulacra; there is no original, only the effect of the original. (Okay, at least the first film hangs onto that meatspace/virtuality division, and the sequels break it apart. I think.)

sdv (non-human)

15:40 / 28.09.06

A better and more useful example than the ones mentioned is D. Galouye's novel 'Counterfeit World' (made into a film by Werner Fassbinder) because unlike the previous examples it works on the quite useful assumption that the simulated world exists for a real purpose - the replacement of pollsters by artificial worlds to enable the replacement of human labour..

However a 'real world' is still assumed to exist so that it's probably a poor example of a simulcra... Where it might work is in the connection that is established between the simulated world and the replacement of the symbolic in the real world by the simulation.

There are lots of other examples but I'm particularly fond of this example because of the way it could potentially happen being financed by the eradication of polling, focus groups etc... (wouldn't want to write the code myself of course...)

18:39 / 28.09.06

Abre Los Ojos is pretty good, I think (I'm better with film than I am with Baudrillard).

I wonder if Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind would work -- it's more a PK Dick romantic comedy.

I suspect the tricks in Jacob's Ladder, though, would be nearly ideal. Protagonist is living two different lives, one of which he knows is a fiction caused by his participation in a battlefield hallucinogen experiment (without his knowledge) in Vietnam. Problem is, he doesn't know which life is the fiction, and he can't choose when the flashbacks start/the channel switches between lives. The conclusion is delightfully ambiguous, too.

Phex: Dorset Doom

20:22 / 28.09.06

I think Bladerunner says something pretty neat about the inability to distinguish between 'real' humans and 'fake' humans (replicants)

The inability in Blade Runner isn't total- although you'd never notice a 'Skin-Job' walking down a rain-soaked neon lit street, there are means (the 'Voight-Kampf test' in the film) to tell who is a Replicant and who isn't by measuring their reactions to moral questions. Therefore, I wouldn't say that Blade Runner is dealing with Simulacra- the 'copying' isn't perfect since there is still a deeper level, revealed by the Voight-Kampf test, with which we can distinguish a 'copy' from an 'original'.
Blade Runner is often cited as an example IMHO because Philip K Dick uses the term Simulacra in essays to describe humanoid androids, replicants basically, and his novel The Simulacra (1964) features a humanoid-android character (standing in for the President of the United States- JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE SHEEPLE!!!1kHh!).

Disco is My Class War

02:35 / 29.09.06

Ah, but that's the whole point... the Voight-Kampf test doesn't work, does it? Deckard passes it with flying colours.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:46 / 29.09.06

Hmmm... and (apologies to sdv, but I haven't seen his example, which sounds ace - one to hunt down. I've heard lots of good things about Fassbinder) Blade Runner's alos possibly useful because the real thing _doesn't_ quite exist any more. There aren't any humans any more who live in a state of certainty that the people around them are human - anybody could be a replicant, so the species of human that was utterly confident in the borders of humanity has disappeared. In fact, the next step is that they can't be sure that they themselves are human - as is pointed out by Rachel and then by Deckard - but the idea that they are themselves the last reliable signifier of "human" is what they cling onto as a means by which to maintain the absolute bature of the human self - a human self which, as it turns out, can be replicated just like human eyes.

sdv (non-human)

18:40 / 29.09.06

Tannhauser,

Not sure that the logic works because the state, which is (I suggest) a liberal-capitalist-democracy feels confident enough to be able to terminate/kill the androids with impunity. The only way in which this could be possible given the nature of the state, is if the androids were thought of, presented as sub-human ? Could a society treat androids in such a way without being more overtly fascist ?

Besides I think the most interesting and relevant thing to the original question, about the film is the way it represents a a diffuse capitalist economy - (1980s remember) long before we had made that many movements towards an economy founded on the virtual.... the film attempts to show a post-information economy.

19:10 / 29.09.06

The only way in which this could be possible given the nature of the state, is if the androids were thought of, presented as sub-human

I thought that was presented as a deteriorating status quo?

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:13 / 30.09.06

Well, Rachel is presented as human, and is raised as human... as is Deckard. But yes, biological humans have the protection of the law, and replicants don't. On the other hand, I think Persephone's right, although it depends on what version of the film you're watching. The theatrical release, in which Rachel is a replicant and Deckard (arguably) isn't, has the v/o at the end explaining that Rachel doesn't have a termination date - that she is a replicant who does not have a four-year lifespan. That seems to be a pretty clear disintegration of the distinction between replicant and human, just as at the other end the relationships and the photographs colelcted by Roy Batty's crew are inscribing the idea that humanity and selfhood come from accumulated memory - so, Rachel's memories are simulated, but her acts of having them are from her perspective real - even when she knows that they are not themselves. Whereas Leon's photographs are an attempt to simulate the experience of having memories.

So, Leon's memories are imaginary, as are Rachel's, but the wasy in which they are fabricated changes how Leon and Rachel (and Deckard) understand themselves. Deeeckard tells Rachel that her memories are not "truly experienced", and that changes Rachel's status, both personally and legally - she stops being a human. However, she is biologically human in a way that Batty and co. aren't, because she lives a human life. On the other hand, the simulation of human life, and specifically of value for human life, is what saves Deckard when Batty saves his life on the roof. Except if Deckard's a replicant, and thus not human...

Hmmm.

I think I need a flowchart here.

01:05 / 01.10.06

Yeah, the nice thing about Blade Runner (the non-director's-cut one) is the optimism that comes with not knowing -- the fact that the up note at the end is that weird "who ever does [know how long they've got left]?"

If it matters to the reading of authentic/inauthentic humanity as a class thing, there's another level to that in the book on which the movie was based. The assumption there was that if you're a human and still on Earth, there was something wrong with you that disqualified you from moving off-world. Also, the idea of replicants is first introduced in the form of animals. There've been mass extinctions of common animals, like frogs, birds and sheep, so it becomes a status thing to have a robot replica of the vanished animals. Moving scene in desert when Our Hero finds a horned toad under a rock, thinks it's a miracle, brings it home, then someone with a knife opens the panel for its battery. This replacement animal thing is alluded to in the film with Rachel's bird, but just barely (and the devastated natural world doesn't really show up at all).

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

02:54 / 02.10.06

From what I remember of the book, it was graded status - being able to afford a replicant animal was one thing, but to have a real animal was even better. Deckard spends a lot of time trying to maintain the illusion that his sheep is in fact a real sheep, right up until the sheep's systems fail and it explodes or starts sparking. It's been a couple years since I read it, though. I vaguely recall he tried to purchase a fresh one before anyone noticed. Maintaining the simulation was extremely important in the book's society.

Looking at the movie - well - Pris is a perfect simulation; she's designed to emulate a certain "type" - she's a sexbot, as stated at the beginning of the movie. Only she successfully she succeeds in changing her form/identity based on learned experience so the simulation makes her closer to Rachel and Deckard than the others. She's easily my favourite character in the film, actually, evolving from the preprogrammed harlot to the self-programmed harlequin figure.

There's a certain classist thing going on with Deckard and Rachel's relationship in both versions in terms of the importance and status of replicants as simulacra; humanoid replicants aren't "perfect" simulations in the book, and consequently it would appear that Deckard can sleep with her without any real consequences to his marriage. And the movie Deckard's "seduction" of Rachel changes depending on whether or not you favour the "human" Deck or "replicant" Deck readings.

20:37 / 13.10.06

Feel free to give me the frown-tap for being glib, but I've long-held that Paris Hilton is a textbook simulacrum.

21:05 / 13.10.06

Well can you explain why?

Good Intentions

05:58 / 24.10.06

What do we actually now about Paris Hilton? The image has superceded the real in a quite extravagent ecstacy.

Good Intentions

05:59 / 24.10.06

I think the best example of simulacra is the one in the introduction - where the discovered primitive Phillipino tribes (the Taradays, I believe) were left alone, to keep them an untouched civilisation.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:52 / 24.10.06

There's discussion of the status of Paris Hilton here. Looking back at that thread, I think that what might be more interesting than any possible status as a simulacrum is the realness of Paris Hilton. Hilton seems increasingly to function as a siren - in the sense of being seductive, but also in the sense of something the noise of which makes it very hard to concentrate on anything else.

Nalyd Khezr Bey

13:25 / 06.11.06

In my opinion, one of the clearest examples of the line of thinking discussed in this thread is the book Words Made Flesh by Ramsey Dukes (1987) as well as his S.S.O.T.B.M.E. and various articles about the same idea in a couple of his other books.

02:07 / 07.11.06

I think Bladerunner says something pretty neat about the inability to distinguish between 'real' humans and 'fake' humans (replicants) which is pretty similar to some of the Matrix's more Baudrillardian themes. Bladerunner was always a favourite film for my tutors to cite when talking about simulacra.

SPOILER

In the KW Jeter sequels to the book and film, it develops that replicants in outer space have developed the ability to reproduce - and humans have lost it.

09:54 / 07.11.06

I'm starting to think that pretty much all nature documentaries operate as simulcra in that they give the impression of a thriving natural world free from man's interference.
Granted, Mr Attenborough and pals do like to finish their shows with a little coda detailing the threat of climate change and suchlike, but I'm not sure that's enough.

Good Intentions

23:49 / 08.11.06

That seems to be a good observation, Boboss. Nature documentaries being the image of nature rather than nature itself. It would still be a simulacrum if it talked about the effects of humans on the environment: Baudrillard reminded us that if A is exactly like B, A is still different from B by being exactly like B.

Good Intentions

23:50 / 08.11.06

An example that came to my mind this morning:

World Record Attempts. They being the simulacrum of a sporting (in its widest sense) achievement.

21:43 / 14.12.06

There's Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, which the name of this posting board actually comes from. There are (apocryphal?) stories of one of the issues always being close at hand during the filming of The Matrix. My personal reading of the series is that it's a sort of Fortean/Cubist take on reality where there are so many different versions of what is or isn't true that the internet is going to evolve into the highest form of simulacra? That's why the last book talks about engineering the "end of the world" but everyone's still alive.... But there are probably many different takes on it.

03:56 / 18.12.06

the wikipedia article on hyperreality has some great examples which I'll quote here:

- a sports drink of a flavour that doesn't exist ("wild ice zest berry")
- pornography ("sexier than sex itself")
- a plastic Christmas tree that looks better than a real Christmas tree ever could
- a magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer
- a well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal)
- any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts"
- the Gulf War, to the extent that America understood it: Baudrillard, in fact, claims that the Gulf War never even happened
- Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing' - 'creatio' is a noun) : Disney World, Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas
- TV and film in general, due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds
- so-called "reality television" programs that have nothing to do with reality

08:11 / 18.12.06

It would still be a simulacrum if it talked about the effects of humans on the environment: Baudrillard reminded us that if A is exactly like B, A is still different from B by being exactly like B.

That's an interesting point, and one which if I'm honest I'm not sure I completely understand. My intention, however, was to highlight a particularly pernicious simulcra - one that feeds into and nourishes some extremely popular and dangerous untruths.

21:45 / 18.12.06

you both make excellent points, and I happen to love the example of the "nature show"
I think what's important though is that it's not the misrepresentation of nature that makes the documentaries simulcra. even if they presented a completely accurate portrayal of nature, they'd still be simulcra simply because they're false constructions - filmed over long periods of time and edited together and narrated to appear as if they take place exactly as they are shown to happen
I suppose the same claim could be made for nearly any documentary, but it's particularly true for nature docs because the false sense of verisimilitude they engineer is so painfully and delicately constructed