Hyper reality and Baudrillard

Plato’s metaphor of ‘The Cave’

Describes the condition of people living in a cave. In the cave there are chained prisoners who are
born in the cave, live, reproduce, die etc. All their lives are spent in this environment. The only thing
they know of reality is life in the cave, staring at the wall. Sometimes the masters cast shadows on
the wall. The prisoners assume these shadows represent reality. (Some people say the shadows are
deliberately created by the masters, others say the images are more accidental and are just created
when the masters are going about their business.)

What we understand about ourselves and our relationship to the world is fundamentally wrong –
similar to Marxist Ideology.

The cave is a form of social conditioning that leads us to an understanding of ourselves that is
flawed.

There is a version of the allegory in which one prisoner escapes, sees the real world and then goes
back to tell the other prisoners that there is a world with trees, sunlight, people not in chains etc.
Instead of going with him, the prisoners think he’s gone mad and kill him.

This could represent that it’s difficult to get people to step outside a certain world view. To Plato, it
was the role of philosophers to drag people out of their ‘cave’. People invest a lot in their beliefs of
how the world is so it’s very difficult to get them to step outside of that.

Coca Cola (1930s)
ideas of Father Christmas and what he looks like are the one created by Coca Cola. This image
was created for their branding purposes.

It’s an example of how our understanding of the world is formed through images created in a
commodity culture.

Affects of brand images – brands have a physical, psychological impact on us.

Representations of reality become our reality. We invest in them and they become our world,
physically and mentally.

Baudrillard – post Structuralist philosopher

2 main forerunners:

Karl Marx and his idea of how people relate to each other under a system of Capitalism.

Guy Debord: wrote about consumer commodity culture, belonged to a group called the
Situationists.

Wrote the book: “Society and the Spectacle” in which he states that society is fully reliant on the
mediation of 3rd party commodities and images of commodities, rather than living life directly
between ourselves.

To Marx, a commodity had 2 component parts: a use value and exchange value. Eg we buy an
umbrella as it keeps us dry and how much we would be willing to pay for it.

Baudrillard added that they also have a symbolic value. For him, this is the most important
feature of objects in the 20th century. Symbolic value is what’s associated with the commodity
itself. Eg buying a very expensive, branded umbrella – the brand and associated cost conveys more
importance.

The price of objects is often determined by the symbolic value – eg the price of a Ferrari is increased
simply because of the brand.

Simulacra: something that is a copy of the basic reality

For example: A map is an obvious copy of reality. You can tell the real world from the map.

But what if that map was drawn in such precise detail and on the same scale as the real world? It
would be difficult to separate the image from reality.

As society develops, copies of reality become more sophisticated so, in the end, the copies of reality
start to take on the characteristics of reality in themselves.

Eventually, simulacra become so developed that they no longer represent reality itself, they only
represent representations of reality. This is Baudrillard’s “Hyperreality”.

This world of simulacra then starts to inform the ‘real’.

Example:Tolkien created a world for ‘The Lord of the Rings’. That then got turned into films which used real
locations in New Zealand. Now, when people go to New Zealand, they don’t approach it as just the
country; their understanding of New Zealand is informed by the representation of simulacra from
the films.

To Baudrillard, it is then impossible to separate the real and the representation of the real, so we live
in a constant hyperreality.

Disneyland Castle

Walt Disney inspired by a castle in Prague. The aesthetic and architecture gets claimed by the
Disney brand and then they build a simulacra of it in the real world. Now people approach historical
castles that look like this based on their view of the Disney castle, e.g. “a beautiful, fairytale castle”.

The castle in Prague is real, but our understanding of the nature of the castle is not real, it is founded
on the simulacra of the Disney fairytale castle.

Reality TV

TV ‘realities’ are not reality, they give a subjective opinion of the world through careful editing.
But the public place value on them as if they were reality. People give a moral judgement on the
contestants as if they knew them, even though the contestants are in a false environment.

Other examples:
Our impression of New York is affected by movies like Wall Street, Friends and images we are shown.

We are likely to define the taste of blackcurrants as similar to Ribena.

Therefore, these aren’t real, they are hyperreal. The representation starts to take precedence over
the reality.

Guy Debord text: “Society and The Spectacle”

Society invests in and revolves around a world of representations rather than a world of reality.

People construct ideas that they believe in utterly and you cannot tell them otherwise. Religious
imagery creates beliefs around sexuality, popularity, class, politics, status etc.

Experience has been replaced by representations.

Tabloid example:The Editor of The Mirror has an impression of what his audience is like

Creates stories and layouts to reflect his impression

The audience start to believe that this is their image

They start to talk and accept/convey the beliefs of this fictitious image

This then becomes a ‘real’ state and lifestyle

But, according to Debord, this spectacle is not a deliberate distortion, it is unconscious.

The Gaze


“Men dream of women; women dream of being dreamt of...”
“Behind every glance is a judgement...”
“A woman is always accompanied... by an image of herself...”
Looking isn’t a neutral activity, it’s not passive; a judgement is always made.
Women are being continually scrutinised and surveyed.
“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”
(Berger, 1972)


Women react to a patriarchal gaze.
Parallel with Foucault: men look at women but women don’t look at men
I.e. if women know they’re being looked at they will change their behaviour and self-
regulate, behaving how they think they should.


There has been a shift since the ‘70s but there is still an imbalance of power between men and
women.


Image: Hans Memling ‘Vanity’ (1485)


Gaze relationships in the image:


We’re looking at the woman
She’s looking at herself
o The title connoted that she loves herself, is narcissistic
Painted by a man; commissioned by man; at this time the audience would have been all
male
o Therefore is a patriarchal image of women
o It becomes an image of a male impression of womanhood and has an erotic function
o Allows men to laugh at women for being obsesses with appearance, yet is all about
men being obsessed with a naked female body.
o Reinforces the idea that men (the viewer) have power over the woman in the
painting, therefore becomes a symbol of dominance.


Historically, ideas of beauty have been constructed by men for the enjoyment of men.


The Materialist reading is that the Base is made up of men in control of art and production;
therefore ideas of beauty reflect the imbalance between men and women.


Image: Alexandre Cabanel. ‘Birth of Venus’ 1863


An idealised female body, available for the viewer to claim; she’s averting her gaze so the
viewers’ gaze is not discouraged.
The image is of submission, tacitly encouraging you to keep looking.
It is ‘asking’ you to dominate the woman, who in turn is allowing you to do it.
o That she likes this is a fiction created by men.
o It is a fantasy of human relations.


Image: Manet ‘Olympia’ 1863


By comparison, this woman is looking at the viewer whilst covering her genitals.
She is challenging the viewer, i.e. you can only have her if you pay.
This image shows more of the reality of human relations.
Both images suggest women are sexually available, yet Manet’s gives the woman more control.


Erotic images are given a veneer of respectability through conventions of “The Nude”.


Berger: naked and nude are different as the Nude is accepted as art.


Guerrilla Girls: in galleries, 85% of nudes are females as 95% of exhibited artists are men.


Image: Ingres ‘Le Grand Odalisque’ 1814


Ingres – French, famed for images of Turks


(1) The man gazing onto the woman = power, control and subservience
(2) The West to the East – ‘Orientalism’ = fantasy about cultures
o Also about power
o Suggests racist stereotypes of loose women and submissive cultures


Woman portrayed as submissive, young and innocent; she looks Western in a Persian setting.


Shows men’s desire for innocence and virginity
A child’s face makes the viewer feel like a dominant adult.
The same doe-eyed look can be found in modern pornography and celebrity images.


Image: Manet ‘Bar at the Folies Bergeres’ 1882


Example of Suture – spectators look though the eyes of the actors.
The viewer is forced into the eyes of the man in the painting
Can only be read as a man looking at the woman, can have no neutrality.
Other painting examples allow possibility of a male or female viewer, even though it is
always from a male perspective.
In this painting, Manet’s man is not in a dominant position.


Image: Jeff Wall ‘Picture for Women’ 1979


Suture is occurring: we are the camera and are forced into this position
It is still an image of a man looking at a woman
But photography seems to be a neutral, objective gaze whilst painting seems subjective and
created.


Susan Sontag (1979) ‘On Photography’

“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed” (pg 4)
o Therefore it can never be neutral


Example of how women are competing with other women to be subservient to men and be
approved by them.
She assumes the cameras are always on her and is therefore self-regulating, whether the
cameras are taking pictures or not. She is constantly acting up to the male gaze.
Celebrity images end up in women’s magazines; therefore it becomes a case of women
watching women from the point of view of male scrutiny.


Men are increasingly more scrutinised but as figures of power, strength and dominance.


Filament magazine – produced by women as a reaction against Nuts etc.


Aims to be a female gaze and objectify men
But men in the magazine are still defined by a patriarchal view of the male
In some ways, it is just women thinking in the same way as men, even though the roles are
reversed.


Women in positions of power in the media still perpetuate the male gaze.


Laura Mulvey on Miss World (1970)


“The Miss World competition is not an erotic exhibition. It is a public celebration of the
traditional female road to success.”
“Their condition is the condition of all men.”
o I.e. parading to be scrutinised by men.

Comunication theory

Different ‘lenses’/tools – yield different results and may contradict/conflict

· Socio-psychological

· Socio-cultural

Context of the message is important and affects the message

· Rhetori

Communication as persuasion

· Semiotics

How things gain their meaning and the structure of communication

· Cybernetics

Communication of feedback systems

· Critical Communication

Communication as a site of power, as ideology, as manipulation

· Phenomenology

Perception and experience are key to communication

Shannon-Weaver Model

1 engineer, 1 mathematician

Military funded experiment to analyse communication with the aim of producing a model that led to the most efficient communication process.

Reduced communication to 5 stages at which communication can happen or can break down.

Model applied to telephones and radios

Is now the example of how all forms of communication work, both visual and verbal

It is a linear model; it only works if B h as responded to A’s message.

Related to Graphic Design

Misinterpretation of the message is a problem that occurs between the decoder and the destination.

The model starts when the message is decided to prior influences on the designer (culture, background, politics etc) are not considered; ie the model works in a vacuum.

There is a ‘feedback loop’ which means the destination’s reaction will feedback to the information source, thereby enabling the message to be ‘tweaked’.

· Problems

The model operates outside of any social factory

It has reductive linearity – ie it reduces communication to 5 steps and only works in one direction, A to B, unlike a real dialogue.

But, by reducing visual communication to these stages can help clarify your message as a designer.

Communication problems identified as having 3 levels

· Level A – technical problem

hhHow accurate can the message be transmitted?

· Level B – semantic problems

How precisely is the message conveyed?

· Level C – Effectiveness problem

How effectively does the received meaning affect behaviour? Ie communication only occurs when B behaves as A wants

Noise

Anything unintended assed to the signal between transmission and reception.

· Noise at information sourceE.g. someone defacing your message with graffiti changes the message away from the information source’s intention

· Transmitter and channel noise

E.g. static on TV,competition around your message (e.g. other billboards),organisations like Adbusters subverting your original message

To consider as graphic designers:

The information source and what you want to communicate

Models of transmission

Disrupting existing channels by being the noise source

Redundancy vs Entropy

Redundant:

adds nothing, doesn’t interfere in the process; e.g. power line does nothing to the power it’s conducting.

Redundancy = high predictability and /or low information.E.g. a handshake – a simple action that carries a successful message, therefore is highly redundant

Therefore, in communication want redundancy as message won’t be affected at all.

By increasing redundancy you communicate more effectively with your target audience.

Entropy:

Something is lost/seeps out; e.g. when power is lost from a cable

Entropy = low predictability; unconventional; high levels of information

E.g. handshake with a buzzer on your hand

All of the original message is affected by buzzer that shocks which alters the message and makes it confusing.

Communication entropy – the message ‘seeps out’ to the wrong audience.

Communication works better when you add redundancy.

- Designers who introduce redundant messages care about the receiver of the message and ensure the message works are all levels with all audiences.

- If you have a niche audience, you can use entropic messages. Redundant styles in this case would neutralise the message for the niche audience.

Examples of strategies to introduce redundancy in graphic design:

- Sans serif font – makes text plain and neutral

- Stereotypes – use is also a big problem as it assumes the viewer has knowledge of cultural stereotypes.

Medium/Codes

Each channel of communication has its own codes, e.g. visual, journalistic, social etc.

Those that adhere to codes are redundant, those that challenge/subvert the codes are entropic.

Redundancy is essential for communication therefore designers must understand the codes to communicate effectively.