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.
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