E 341 Lecture Notes - Reality Principle, Simulacrum
Document Summary
The present is an age of simulacra and simulation . Simulacrum: dictionary meaning: insubstantial form or semblance of something, image. Simulacrum as used by baudrillard: a sign or an image that masks the absence of a basic reality; a copy without an original. Signs no longer correspond to or mask their real-life referent but replace it in a world or autonomous floating signifiers" or empty" signifiers. Baudrillard often speaks of simulacra as the third order of simulation. Representation starts from the principle that the sign and the real are equivalent. To feign to have what one hasn"t . But even to feign is not the right word: in feigning, reality principle remains intact but simulation threatens the difference between true and false , between real and imaginary simulation. Danger of this regime of simulation and simulacra in the present age. Reality is no longer what it used to be so panic-stricken production of the real .
