Asimulacrum (pl.:simulacra orsimulacrums, from Latinsimulacrum, meaning "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing.[1] The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of agod. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original.[2] Literary criticFredric Jameson offersphotorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, in which a painting is created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real thing.[3] Other art forms that play with simulacra includetrompe-l'œil,[4]pop art,Italian neorealism, andFrench New Wave.[3]
Simulacra have long been of interest to philosophers. In hisSophist,Plato speaks of two kinds of image-making. The first is a faithful reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. The second is intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. He gives the example ofGreek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed. This example from the visual arts serves as ametaphor for the philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to distort the truth so that it appears accurate unless viewed from the proper angle.[5]Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in theTwilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality.[6]
Frenchsemiotician andsocial theoristJean Baudrillard argues inSimulacra and Simulation that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: thehyperreal. According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no original or no longer has an original, since a simulacrum signifies something it is not, and therefore leaves the original unable to be located. Where Plato saw two types of representation—faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which "bears no relation to any reality whatsoever".[7][8]
In Baudrillard's concept, like Nietzsche's, simulacra are perceived as negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic,Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which an acceptedideal or "privileged position" could be "challenged and overturned".[9] Deleuze defines simulacra as "those systems in which different relates to differentby means of difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems noprioridentity, nointernal resemblance".[10]
Alain Badiou, in speaking with reference to Nazism about Evil, writes,[11] "fidelity to a simulacrum, unlike fidelity to an event, regulates its break with the situation not by the universality of the void, but by the closed particularity of an abstract set ... (the 'Germans' or the 'Aryans')".
According to the philosopher Florent Schoumacher,[12] in societies ofhypermodernity, in the West, thesocial contract states that we are obliged to use "simulacra". We are carried there by hubris (hubris). However, the contemporary notion of simulacrum assumes that we all have a biased relationship with the reality of the world, not because reality is not accessible, but because we wish not to see things as they appear. The philosopher nevertheless emphasizes that our capacity foraphairesis, our capacity for representing the world, does indeed exist.
Recreational simulacra includereenactments of historical events or replicas of landmarks, such asColonial Williamsburg and theEiffel Tower, and constructions of fictional or cultural ideas, such asFantasyland atThe Walt Disney Company'sMagic Kingdom. The various Disney parks have been regarded as the ultimate recreational simulacra by some philosophers, with Baudrillard noting thatWalt Disney World Resort is a copy of a copy, or "a simulacrum to the second power".[13] In 1975, Italian authorUmberto Eco argued that at Disney's parks, "we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it".[14] Examining the impact of Disney's simulacrum ofnational parks,Disney's Wilderness Lodge, environmentalist Jennifer Cypher andanthropologist Eric Higgs expressed worry that "the boundary between artificiality and reality will become so thin that the artificial will become the centre of moral value".[15] Eco also refers to commentary on watching sports as sports to the power of three, or sports cubed. First, there are the players who participate in the sport (the real), then the onlookers merely witnessing it, and finally the commentary on the act of witnessing the sport. Visual artistPaul McCarthy has created entire installations based onPirates of the Caribbean and theme park simulacra, with videos playing inside the installation.
Beer (1999: p. 11) employs the term "simulacrum" to denote the formation of a sign or iconographic image, whethericonic oraniconic, in the landscape or greater field ofThangka art and Tantric Buddhisticonography. For example, an iconographicrepresentation of a cloud formation sheltering a deity in a thangka or covering the auspice of asacred mountain in the natural environment may be discerned as a simulacrum of an "auspicious canopy" (Sanskrit:Chhatra) of theAshtamangala.[16]Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena approach acultural universal and may be proffered as evidence of the natural creative spiritual engagement of the experienced environment endemic to thehuman psychology.
Simulacra often appear inspeculative fiction. Examples of simulacra in the sense of artificial orsupernaturally or scientifically createdartificial life forms include:
Also, the illusions of absent loved ones created by an alien life form inStanislaw Lem'sSolaris can be considered simulacra.
In his book Simulacra and Simulation,Jean Baudrillard describes theBeaubourg effect in which thePompidou Centre functions as a monument of a mass simulation that absorbs and devours all the cultural energy from its surrounding areas. According to Baudrillard, the Centre Pompidou is "a machine for making emptiness".[17]
An everyday use of the simulacrum are the false facades, used during renovations to hide and imitate the real architecture underneath it.
APotemkin village is a simulation: a facade meant to fool the viewer into thinking that he or she is seeing the real thing. The concept is used in the Russian-speaking world as well as in English and in other languages. Potemkin village belongs to a genus of phenomena that proliferated in post-Soviet space. Those phenomena describe gaps between external appearances and underlying realities.[18]
Disneyland – Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulacra. [...] Play of illusions and phantasms.[19]
Las Vegas – the absolute advertising city (of the 1950s, of the crazy years of advertising, which has retained the charm of that era).[20]
