The French social theorist Jean Baudrillard is responsible for theorizing the concept of the "hyperreal," most notably in his book "Simulacra and Silmulation." If you saw the first Matrix movie, you may have noticed that there is a fake book with this title which turns out to be a container for hiding things and not a book at all. The following is an excerpt from Baudrillard's text where he speaks about the concept of the hyperreal:
"By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials—worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself—such is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and for the simulated generation of differences." I don't know if Hyperreal got was influenced by Baudrillard but it seems likely. His concepts had some influence in the art world and academia for a time. ~David ---------- Original Message ------------- Subject: Re: (313) This list Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 15:12:50 -0500 From: lisa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] hehe - this leans well towards something I'm gonna post shortly. ;) but since you've posted this ... I was wondering about the origins of hyperreal.org and how the 313 list came to live there. hyperreal = more real than real? pushing/redefining 'what is real' perhaps? hmmm ... Lisa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > a classic debate that ha plague man through through the ages- what 'is' > noise? > > we're getting into some Greecian philosphy type stuff now > > On Fri, 19 Mar 2004, john harvey wrote: > > >>- but any reduction in noise >> >>>that might potentially lose us valuable contributors is worth it, >> >>what might be noise to you may be important for someone else - who are you >>to say what noise is? >> >> >> > >
