TASK
Hyperreality is where something has been replaced by a simulacrum; a representation of something that is real.
Baudrillard has written that he think the division between real and simulation has collapsed, and we now live in a hype-real world, everything we see has been edited, enhanced, cut or super imposed and that 'image is everything' to us today, as a result we produce 'perfect' replicas or versions of ourselves and our world. "The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. . . The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal. . . which is entirely in simulation. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible." An example of hyperreality is the images that are released and used in the media, mainly in the fashion and gossip magazines. Photographs are taken of celebrities and models and are then edited and enhanced using Photoshops (and other programs) so to create an image of perfection. The image of what beauty should be, which is then used by the media knowing that people will attempt to copy it. This topic reminds me of a few photographs that Britney Spears released a few years ago to show to the world how touched up and fake the images in magazines actually were. As you can see she has been slimmed town, airbrushed, removed the imperfections to show flawless skin, the cracks in her heals have been airbrushed out; all of this to produce and image that people over the world compare themselves to thinking it was an image of what the idea / perfect figure or woman should look like, when in reality they would be comparing themselves to a false representation of a woman, hence creating unhealthy role models as people strive for something that isn't real, shown through the quote below.
Definition
Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness defines as "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience
hyperreality [ˌhaɪpərɪˈælɪtɪ]
n pl -ties
(Sociology) (Philosophy) an image or simulation, or an aggregate of images and simulations, that either distorts the reality it purports to depict or does not in fact depict anything with a real existence at all, but which nonetheless comes to constitute reality
Simulacrum (plural: simulacra), from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity",[1] 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 a god
hyperreality:-a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra
ABOUT HYPERREALITY
Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches allegedly make the material promise of endless amounts of identical food from the store, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite, as a person would expect from a fast food restaurant
KEY QUOTES
Jean Baudrillard (1994) maps the transformation from representation to simulacrum in four ‘successive phases of the image’ in which the last is that "it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum"
One of the fundamental qualities of hyperreality is the implosion of Ferdinand Saussure’s (1959) model for the sign (see semiotics) (pg. 67). The mass simulacrum of signs become meaningless, functioning as groundless, hollow indicators that self-replicate in endless reproduction. Saussure outlines the nature of the sign as the signified (a concept of the real) and the signifier (a sound-image). Baudrillard (1981) claims the Saussurian model is made arbitrary by the advent of hyperreality wherein the two poles of the signified and signifier implode in upon eachother destroying meaning, causing all signs to be unhinged and point back to a non-existing reality (180). Another basic characteristic of the hyperreal is the dislocation of object materiality and concrete spatial relations (seeobjecthood).
SOURCES
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/jean_baudrillard_and_hyperrealit.htm
http://138.232.99.40/RSim061108_Sim_Sim.pdf
http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/realityhyperreality.htm
http://mediacrit.wetpaint.com/page/Hyperreality%3A+The+Authentic+Fake
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