Task 5 - Hyper reality

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. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.

• Films in which characters and settings are either digitally enhanced or created entirely from CGI (e.g.: 300, where the entire film was shot in front of a blue/green screen, with all settings super-imposed).

• A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).

• Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts" (e.g. "General Ignorance" from QI, where the questions have seemingly obvious answers, which are actually wrong).

• Professional sports
 athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.

• Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing'): Disney World; Dubai; Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas.

• TV
 and film in general (especially "reality" TV), due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds. The current trend is to glamorize the mundane using histrionics.

• A retail store that looks completely stocked and perfect due to facing, creating a world of endless identical products.

• A life which cannot be (e.g. the perfect facsimile of a celebrity's invented persona).

• A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of an unattainable partner.

• A newly made building or item designed to look old, or to recreate or reproduce an older artifact, by simulating the feel of age or aging.

• Constructed languages (such as E-Prime) or "reconstructed" extinct dialects.

• Second Life
 The distinction becomes blurred when it becomes the platform for RL (Real Life) courses and conferences, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or leads to real world interactions behind the scenes.

• Weak virtual reality which is greater than any possible simulation of physical reality.

Baudrillards 

• Simulacra is how society simulates the real 
• Unsure of what is real and fictional - instability of meaning//Fictional and real interwoven 
• Example: Marlon Brando in Italian restaurant, representing Italy due to playing The Godfather, despite being American actor.
• Misplacing and displacing the real 
• Slippage between real and imagined
• Baudrillard thinks characteristics of our society 
• With regards to his three articles 'The Gulf War will not happen', 'The Gulf War is not happening', 'The Gulf War did not happen'. 
• Broad---Experience of the world is so destabilised by the media therefore it is almost impossible to say what's really going on. Different accounts of what is happening but reality of what is happening is quite unknown. 
• He is not saying that media is distorting reality because no real left to distort competing rhetoric/versions. 
• Journalism is designed to seduce us.

Task 5. 

Write a short analysis (300 words approx) of an aspect of our culture that is in some way Hypperreal. Hypperreality is an awkward and slippery concept.

Examples of Hyper reality 

Example of Hyper Reality, photoshopped magazine advert.

Banned photoshopped advert.

When analyzing hyper reality I must start by defining Baudrillards simulacra- the simulacra is what society perceives as reality, it is a simulation of what reality actually is.

Reality in the modern world is something that is defined by the mass media, it is the mass media that portrays perfection or imperfection in a manner that allows the consumer markets to absorb the material given to use by them.

It is this deluded view of the reality that defines hyper reality. The examples I have chosen to look at is advertisements from women’s magazines. The images used with in these adverts are based around portraying perfection through their appearance. Using a perfect image is vehicle in which to sell their products as a result the image is enhanced and edited using technology. It is this that according to Boudrillard is the simulacra the consumers view on reality. The women in these adverts are portrayed having flawless skin or the perfect body. This doesn’t just become the simulacra of reality for the consumer but also for the women photographed, she then believes her reality to be that perceived by the consumer, the heavily edit reality or hyper reality. It is this hyper reality that has potentially detrimental effect on the consumer markets, for example women trying to copy the hyper reality, resulting in eating disorders etc.

On a more global scale, the news is widely perceived to be fact, and un biased however each news company (the Sun) is owned by one person, who has a deciding word on what is portrayed to the masses(Murdoch). As a result there is potential for the news itself to be an example of hyper reality, as it comes from a certain standpoint or bias in which the population accepts as fact the simulacra.

It is apparent that it is impossible due to globalization and the mass media to define what is reality and what is hyper reality unless there is first hand experience of the reality itself.

'We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.'

This quote from Baudrillard backs up the notion that in the modern world re are increasingly reliant upon second hand information and thus live the majority of our life in the hyper reality due to this.