Lecture 5 - Hyperreality

Critical Studies

Lecture 5

Jean Baudrillard 1929 - 2007

Haddon Sundblom - illustrations from 1930s

Father Christmas not always represented the same way

Coca Cola ^

Cognitive illusion

Coke challenge - blind taste test/ not blind taste test -

people consume the brand not the product

Baudrillard - French Philosopher - social theorist

Pioneering theorist in semiotics, post modernism, pop culture and media theory

Associated with 'post structuralism'

group of thinkers - french 1960's +

Deleuze, Barthes, Derrida, Cixous, Foucault, Baudrillard. 

Text - anything that can be interpreted in signs - contextualised 

Structuralism - signs and language being important. Interest in 'structures' in terms of culture/ society. 

Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Lacan, Althusser, Leroi-Gouran, Kristeva.

Guy Debord - 'Society of the Spectactle' (1967)

Marxist theorist

Commodity - relations in the age of consumer culture.

Revised Marx's theories for the 60's

Images and signs. 

Society had become an 'Immense accumulation of spectactles'

Spectacle - About looking - making sense of images. Consumer culture operates on the basis of images and signs. 

Karl Marx - Philosopher and economic theorist.

'Critique of political economy'

Economy looked at with a political/ideological perspective.

Attempt to move on from this society to a better one. 

'Labour Theory of Value'

Modes of production - Capitalism/Socialism/Communism

"All that is solid melts into the air; all that is holy is profaned" Quote from Hamlet - appears in the communist manifesto of 1848.

Ferdinand de Sassure - Swiss born pioneer of semiotics.

Linguistic theory of value. 

Language functions n the basis of a theory of value.

Value is based on the exchange of signs.

Signified

--------

signifier

Marcel Mauss - Anthropologist and ethnographer

pre-strucuralist 

renowned for the idea of 'economy of the gift' in different societies. 

Gifts are only given as part of an exchange.

The gift is always reciprocated in some way.

George Bataille - Philosopher, novelist, poet.

renowned for writings on transgression/death.

gift economies. 'Expenditure without return'

Potlatch - form of sacrifice - ritualistic. 

Marshal McLuhan - Media theorist

Distinction between 'hot' and 'cool' media. Argued that the 'medium is the message'

Baudrillard - 

'Simulacra and Simulation' 1981

elaborated his theory of simulacra (developed since 1970's)

simulacra are copies of the thing they are intended to represent or stand in for - or in recent years - a copy of a copy. - reproductive representation

Contraversial subject for a long time.

Simulacra has become a key term in post modern theory and culture.

The matrix takes a lot of simulation and simulacra theory in its idea and plots.

Luis Burges - If a cartographer keeps creating maps in more and more detail, eventually the map will be as big as the area being mapped with each point exactly covering the original point, eventually making the map and reality the exact same thing with no way of differentiating.

"The generation by models of a real without origin or reality: A Hyperreal." - Baudrillard

Sucessive phases of the image-

• It is the reflection of a profound reality
• It masks and denatures a profound reality
• It masks the absence of a profound reality
• It has no relation to any reality whatsoever: It is its own pure simulacrum. 

Reflection of a profound reality - 

Body of Christ and blood of Christ

Something real going on.

Masks and denatures reality - 

If there is good then there may be evil.

Distorts reality/ masks it

Gargoyles - animal/human hybrid - denatures reality

Masks the absence of profound reality - 

Sorcery - witchcraft etc.

Whole worlds of strange creatures very loosely based on reality.

almost no basis on reality.

No reflection to reality whatsoever - 

A world of simulacrum together.

e.g. Disney Land - has no reality

Castles have history but in this instance the ideas and the films and characters came first.

Father Christmas - Illustration of the hyperreal.

has historical basis

but 'post modern' father christmas has developed from Coca Cola. 

Pure simulacra - copies of copies that do not refer to historical reality

Christmas German Market - Modern christma stradition is very germanic.

Commercialised - german markets everywhere in the country.

Birmingham German market bigger than the one in Frankfurt.

Simulacra - All UK german markets look almost identical - representations

Hyperreality illustration

Developed so far it doesnt represent the original much at all

Frankfurt has been dramatically rebuilt since the war, so the original does not exist anymore.

TV editing creates hyperreal TV not reality TV

After editing it has no real representation of reality but gives the illusion that it does.

It is its own perfect simulacra.

3 Orders of Simulacra:

The counterfeit - Classical Period

Production - Industrial Era

Simulation - Current Code - governed phase

"The Gulf War did Not Take Place" (1991) Baudrillard

'first gulf war' not a real war -  simulacrum in itself.

War is a play of images and signs. 

Seminar 2 - The Gaze

Lecture Notes - Communication Theory

"Who says what to who in what channel with what effect"

• Cybernetic/ Information theory
• Semiotics
• Phenomenonological
• Rhetorical
• Socio-Psychological
• Socio-Cultural
• Critical

Cybernetic Theory of Communication:

Source -> message -> Transmitter -> signal -> -> recieved signal -> Reciever -> message -> Destination 

Linear process.

Three levels of communication problems:

1. Technical (Accuracy, Encoding/Decoding)

2. Semantic (Precision of language)

3. Effectiveness

System theory - Mathematical

                         Biological              <- Interdisciplinary 

                         Sociological

                         Physiological

Semiotics:

Semiotics - What does a sign stand for

Syntactics - Relationships between signs

Pragmatics - Studying how signs practically affect

Phenomenogical Tradition:

Knowing through experience

The way in which humans come to understand the world

Phenomenon - appearance of an object, event or condition

Authentic human relationships

Rhetoric:

Personification as rhetoric used to humanize objects and ideas.

Hyperbole/ Irony/ Personification

Seminar 1 - Notes

This is the page of notes from the first CTS seminar. It doesn't go into much detail but has a few of the key points that were discussed about the Panoticism seminar and task. 

This is the handout from the session. It shows some of the notes made in the session and where the quotes are that I picked for the first task. It probably wasn't necessary to put up all of the pages but if I lose the handout I guess I can use this as a resource. 

Portfolio Task 1 - Panopticism

There are a lot of aspects of contemporary culture that can been seen as being Panoptic in some way and one of these is Mobile Phones. Cellular mobile technology has developed so much over the last decade that about 85% of adults in the United Kingdom own at least one mobile phone. Mobile phones consistently transmit information to several different places at any one time and this information can be accessed by authorities with relative ease if considered necessary.

"This surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration"(Foucault in Thomas. J, 2000, p.61)
Every time a phone is used for communication it will need to send data through a series of checkpoints, including mobile transmitters and satellites, before being received by the specified contact. At each point of the journey the information will be logged as a point of reference and important information about the data will be kept such as the time, location and originating mobile phone number. The majority of phone users will be aware of this fact to some degree but it is a necessary part of owning a mobile phone and having wireless contact with others.
"Visibility is a trap."(Foucault in Thomas. J, 2000, p.64)
Knowing this does not mean that any personal information about mobile communication is necessarily accessed but it means that there is never a moment when it can not be. The possibility of access at any time can modify behaviour and content of something as innocent as a phone call by creating institutional gaze. Even the possibility of "visibility" can cause self regulated behaviour in text messages and mobile conversations.

Mobile phones can also be considered Panoptic in the way that they change personal interaction. Although this example doesn't fit perfectly to a Panoptic description it does work on some levels.
"Two ways of exercising power over men, of controlling their relations, of separating out their dangerous mixtures."(Foucault in Thomas. J, 2000, p.62)
Talking over a mobile phone creates a separation that a normal conversation would not. There is little reason to meet in person when a phone call can be made from anywhere to anyone so the prospect of further development of malicious plans or unwanted topics of conversation is stunted, not to mention the fact that most phone calls can only be made from one individual to another which eradicates the possibility of excess group meetings for the same reason. Separation is a key aspect of the Panopticon ideology but so is a lack of communication so the analogy does not work perfectly in that sense other than the fact that it creates a very different kind of communication.

Aside from controlling malicious possibilities, mobile communication very generally manipulates social interaction.
"But there was also a political dream of the plague, which was exactly its reverse: not the collective festival, but strict divisions"(Foucault in Thomas. J, 2000, p.62)
The change from group meetings to sets of individually distanced conversations and messages is a big difference to the ideology of the 'festival' in which large groups of people congregate. Essentially this creates a society which is much easier to govern; an important aspect of Panopticism. With everybody physically separated the institution is under a lot more control, getting closer to the idea of docile bodies to work with.

On top of separation, the institutions have control of what should be considered socially 'normal'.
In contemporary society there is nothing irregular about a mobile conversation from anywhere in the country to anywhere else.
"The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad"(Foucault in Thomas. J, 2000, p.65)
Mobile phones alter the average dyadic of a conversation because visibility is a prominent aspect in face to face communication. Aspects of body language and reactions help to communicate emotion and understanding across a conversation and the introduction of a longer distance conversation completely changes the distinction of normality in communication. Defining "normality" is key in Panopticism as it gives a basis and a justification for control.

Lecture Notes - Critical Positions of the Media and Popular Culture

Ways in which people have theorised / categorised culture
Raymond Williams 1983
Culture - "One of the most complicated words in the English language"
            - The shared development of society
            - A way of life
            - Works of intelligent or artistic significance

Karl Marx concept of Base/ Superstructure


Base - Forces of production (Tools/Materials)
           Relationships of production (Master/ Slave)

Superstructure - Social Institutions (Legal, Political, Cultural)
                          Forms of consciousness (Ideology)

Society is fundamentally based on struggle.

Base -> Determining content and form of -> Superstructure -> Reflects for and legitimises -> Base etc.

Ideology: - System of ideas or beliefs
               - Masking, distortion or selection of ideas to reinforce power relations through creation of "false consciousness"

Representing personal interests as social interests.
Definitions of 'Popular' - Well liked by many
                                   - Inferior kinds of work
                                   - Work deliberately setting out to win favour
                                   - Culture actually made by the people themselves

Things can be high culture and popular - quantitative popularity
The idea of taste is ideological.

Inferior or Residual Culture:

Popular press VS quality press <- aimed at different classes
Cinema VS Art Cinema

Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane
"Folk Archive" 2005

Graffiti - Developed by the people for the people

Popular culture movement can be traced to the beginnings of modernity.
- Industrial revolution brings about obvious class divisions (wealth but also culture, art etc.)

Matthew Arnold 1867 "Culture & Anarchy" - Arnoldism
Culture - "The best thats been thought and said about the world"
The study of perfection
The pursuit of culture
"Minister to the diseased spirit of our time."
Working class starting to break class boundaries. Culture stops it from happening.

Leavisism - F. R. Leavis
20th Century has seen a decline in the quality of culture.
"Culture has always been in minority keeping" - Blames the increasing of the working class.

Collapse of traditional 'quality' society came at the same time as democracy.
Popular culture offers a form of distraction and compensation for real culture.
Culture is an elitist ideology dominated by higher classes.

Critical Theory: Frankfurt school -> 1923 - 33
Marxism and psycho analysis
Reinterpretation of Marxism for the 20th Century
"Late Capitalism" "All mass culture is identical"
Mass Culture produces conformity not anarchy
Hebert Marcuse - Popular culture VS Affirmative

Consuming popular culture can reduce the political meaning and just help fuel capitalism.
People may think they are making a political stand but really just conforming more to nonconformity.

Authentic Culture VS Mass Culture -
Autonomous culture
Individual creation and imagination

Adorno and Pop Music - Produces passivity through rhythm and emotional adjustment.

Walter Benjamin - "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" 1936
Mass production introducing potential progression

The Birmingham School.
The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
1963 - 2002