Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation describes how a copy of a copy replaces the original, creating a distortion of reality in which we can no longer discern the difference between what is real, and what is artificial. Pure simulacra is when the original is completely replaced. Simulacra can manifest in several ways. Simulation isn’t new. Early simulation can be traced back hundreds, even thousands of years. Paintings, for example, is how we’ve come to visually recognize ancient people like kings, queens, and civilizations. Simulacra is that the simulation has replaced the real thing, or people.
An example of simulacrum can be a famed religious figure and how they are sometimes depicted in infamous paintings that bear little resemblance to who they were in real life. How many depictions of Jesus Christ in literature and media is presented to the public using depictions of Jesus originally painted by Italian renaissance painter Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci? In Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci paintings, Jesus is often depicted as European…sometimes with sweeping shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. There is sometimes a glow or halo around his head. Today, the real Jesus is someone we would call Middle-Eastern. He was born in the West Bank of Jerusalem, an area considered to be part of modern day Palestine. However, we remember Jesus more frequently, as a European man in elegant renaissance paintings. Of course, the real Jesus Christ never sat for a painting during his lifetime that we are historically aware of. His image is purely a work of imagination. Despite this, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo’s renaissance era simulation of Jesus has stood the test of time. This is pure simulation…hyperreality.
We experience simulation and simulacra everyday. Video games, theme parks, virtual reality, create alternate realities that entertain and distract us. Search engines create a hyperreality because its algorithms dictate how it informs people, based on what it scrapes from the internet. Algorithms and social media create a state of hyperreality and dictate what we view and what we are interested in based on what we may have clicked or read…all for one purpose; to sell us things. There are even artificial beings on hand to help us. News media is also on hand to tell us what to think and what to believe through thousands of images and clips that string together various narratives they would like us to believe.
Hyperreality is when simulation completely replaces reality. We have reached a stage where we can no longer look at a video or photo and tell if it is generated. This is a state of hyperreality. I have personally experienced simulation. I talk about it more in the Substack article: The Great Imitator: Doppelganger or copycat? When imitation is no longer flattery (click here to read). I also discuss The Absence of Reality in my treatise, The Absence of Reality can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and fine retailers everywhere.