Simulation and Reality

This afternoon one of the professors in my department presented a paper on film theory and the Romantic conception of the self. No matter what you are probably thinking right now, it was actually really quite interesting. Granted, the discussion that followed only loosely related to film theory or Romanticism, and perhaps this explains the fact that we had much of a discussion at all. Essentially, we found ourselves talking about Jean Baudrillard and his theory of simulation -- i.e., that the Real has forever gone, leaving us only with a virtual, illusory "reality," wherein everything is only a copy of a copy, as though on an assembly line; with codes of codes, where all institutions and communication are mediated matters of commodified, rote repetition. Baudrillard, as you may or may not know, has attracted some measure of notoriety, not least of which for his infamous essay The Gulf War Did not Take Place, in which he takes the philosophy just outlined, and he applies it to the popular apprehension of a "televised" event like the Gulf War. In such an event, he reasons, truth could only ever be mediated truth, ie., on your screen, in your newspaper, via your country's propaganda-machine, and thus it was not Reality, in the common, "objective" sense. Spending time here critiquing Baudrillard is pretty silly, but suffice it to say I think the implications that he and others draw from the mediated nature of truth (aka, "truth-claims"), as well as the hand-wringing critiques of Reality's protectorate, are overwrought, to say the least, considering that the questions he asks are not new ones, no matter what your Literary Theory professor may have told you in class.

Nevertheless, Baudrillard became important in the seminar discussion today because, in line with the comment I made in a post earlier today, the second Gulf War, which we should remember has not yet even been declared, in a sense has already begun (via, for example, the caricatures that governs some of the more intemperate rhetoric of many hawks and doves alike). War has not yet been declared, but, on the one hand, the spoils of war's victory is already being debated, while, on the other hand, its atrocities are being decried. This is not itself a criticism, because both actions are, from their respective positions, reasonable and carry an obvious practicality. Baudrillard would argue, however, before I shut him up again, that the practicality of Simulation (or, as he also calls it, Hyperreality) emphasizes the point he's trying to make.

Similarly, in a wonderful passage in his novel White Noise, Don Delillo showcases not only his understanding of Baudrillard, but, I think he also provides us with a trenchant critique of contemporary media and our relation to it. He writes:

Several days late Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove twenty-two miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were forty cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photography. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.

"No one sees the barn," he said finally.

A long silence followed.

"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."

He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others.

"We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies."

There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.

"Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. This literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."

Another silence ensued.

"They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.

He did not speak for a while. We listened to the incessant clicking of shutter release buttons, the rustling crank of levers that advanced the film.

"What was the barn like before it was photographed?" he said. "What did it look like, how was it different form other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now."

He seemed immensely pleased by this. (Don Delillo, White Noise)

I don't like to force connections upon people when it comes to art and literature, so do as you please, but, as an experiment, what would happen if each of us, the next time we're visiting "The Most Photographed Barn in America," whatever it might prove to be, be it something profound or mundane; what might happen were we to reflect upon what we're seeing and what that seeing thus betrays about not what is Real or Illusion, but what we cannot see and thus what we cannot know? Thinking this, indeed thinking this question even, is to think aesthetically, with an eye toward the art, which is not to say the beauty, that lies inherent in our existence.