hyperreality

This article is about the concept of hyperreality as it applies to contemporary continental philosophy and sociology. For hyperreality in art, see Hyperrealism (painting).

In semiotics and postmodern philosophy, the term hyperreality characterizes the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter the original event or experience being depicted. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.

Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." For example, a viewer watching pornography begins to live in the non-existent world of the pornography, and even though pornography is not an accurate depiction of sex, for the viewer, the reality of "sex" becomes something non-existent. Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.

Baudrillard in particular suggests that the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more. Baudrillard borrows, from Jorge Luis Borges (who already borrowed from Lewis Carroll), the example of a society whose cartographers create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was designed to represent. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape and there is neither the representation nor the real remaining – just the hyperreal.

Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan.

Significance of hyperreality

Hyperreality is significant as a paradigm to explain current cultural conditions. Consumerism, because of its reliance on sign exchange value (e.g. brand X shows that one is fashionable, car Y indicates one's wealth), could be seen as a contributing factor in the creation of hyperreality or the hyperreal condition. Hyperreality tricks consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Essentially, (although Baudrillard himself would perhaps balk at the usage of this word) fulfillment or happiness is found through simulation and imitation of a transient simulacrum of reality, rather than any interaction with any "real" reality.

Interacting in a hyperreal place like a casino gives the subject the impression that one is walking through a fantasy world where everyone is playing along. The decor isn't authentic, everything is a copy, and the whole thing feels like a dream. What isn't a dream, of course, is that the casino takes your money, which you are more apt to give them when your consciousness doesn't really understand what's going on. In other words, although you may intellectually understand what happens at a casino, your consciousness thinks that gambling money in the casino is part of the "not real" world. It is in the interest of the decorators to emphasize that everything is fake, to make the entire experience seem fake. The casino succeeds in turning money itself to an object with no inherent value or inherent reality.

Actually, the casino is trading the hyperreality of fiat currency for another. In reality, the money is fancy printed paper, but we share a constantly reinforced fantasy that it has inherent value.

Definitions of hyperreality

"The simulation of something which never really existed." - Jean Baudrillard
"The authentic fake." - Umberto Eco

Quotations

"The secret affinity between gambling and the desert: the intensity of gambling reinforced by the presence of the desert surrounding the town. The air-conditioned freshness of the gaming rooms, as opposed to the radiant heat outside. The challenge of all the artificial lights to the violence of the sun rays. Night of gambling sunlit on all sides; the glittering darkness of these rooms in the middle of the desert. Gambling itself is a desert form, inhuman, uncultured, initiatory, a challenge to the natural economy of value, a crazed activity on the fringes of exchange. But it also has a strict limit and stops abruptly; its boundaries are exact, its passion knows no confusion. Neither the desert nor gambling are open areas; their spaces are finite and concentric, increasing in intensity toward the interior, toward a central point, be it the spirit of gambling or the heart of the desert - a privileged, immemorial space, where things lose their shadow, where money loses its value, and where the extreme rarity of traces of what signals to us there leads men to seek the instantaneity of wealth." - Baudrillard on Las Vegas

Examples of hyperreality

A sports drink of a flavor that doesn't exist naturally or elsewhere ("wild ice zest berry")
Pornography ("sexier than sex itself")
A plastic Christmas tree that looks better than a real Christmas tree ever could
A magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer
A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal)
Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts"
Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings that they actually are
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
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 video game, realistic or not, in which the player temporarily forgets the difference between the game and reality

References

Boje, D.M. (1995), "Stories of the storytelling organization: a postmodern analysis of Disney as 'Tamara-land'", Academy of Management Journal, 38(4), pp. 997-1035.
Albert Borgmann, Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992).

External links

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