the desert of the real

1
the desert of the real

• inhabiting simulations

2
Jean Baudrillard

• Theorist of hyperreality
• Images, models, facts and data have supplanted
  the real
• truth, reference and objective causes have
  ceased to exist

3
The murder of the real

• when we say reality has disappeared, the point
  it not that it has disappeared physically, but
  that it has disappeared metaphysically. Reality
  continues to exist it is its principle that is
  dead.
• Now, reality without its principle is not the
  same at all it is the murder of the real, the
  loss of any imagination of the real.

4
Reality has a principle only in relation to
appearance/illusion

• When the appearance of images was a virtuous
  (or vicious) fiction
• then the real gained in stature because it was
  not reducible to its signs.
• Now, reality itself is sustained by the
  imaginary by images.
• These images murder the real by substituting
  themselves for it.

5
Simulacrum

• Absence of any distinction between being and
  appearing
• After the near-crash landing in White Noise
• Wheres the media? she said.
• There is no media in Iron City.
• They went through all that for nothing?
• (92)

6
Traditional epistemology

• Image is the reflection of a basic reality.
• Resemblance model of semiological fidelity to
  appearance
• Aesthetic redoubling of appearance
• Good appearance

7
(Protestant) Enlightenment the ban on graven
images

• Image masks and perverts a basic reality.
• Image as false consciousness
• Delusional, artificial, distorted
• an evil appearance

8
Modern epistemology

• Image masks the absence of a basic reality
• Image as conjuration, compensation
• Thin gauze over the void
• plays at being an appearance

9
The simulacrum

• It bears no relation to any reality whatever
• Or reality is already a tissue of signs
• An echo chamber of images
• No longer in the order of appearance, but of
  simulation

10
Confirmation

• I went to the automated teller machine to check
  my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret
  code, tapped out my request. The figure on the
  screen roughly corresponded to my independent
  estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches
  through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of
  relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system
  had blessed my life. I felt its support and
  approval. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed
  that something of deep personal value, but not
  money, not that at all, had been authenticated
  and confirmed. we were in accord, at least for
  now. (White Noise, 46)

11
Brain fade

• were suffering from brain fade. We need an
  occasional catastrophe to break up the incessant
  bombardment of information. The flow is
  constant. Words, pictures, numbers, facts,
  graphics, statistics, specks, waves, particles,
  motes. Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We
  want them, we need them, we depend on
  them. (66)

12
Nostalgia for the real

• Myths of origin
• Strategies of authenticity
• Escalation of the true
• Resurrection of the figurative
• Panic-stricken production of the real

13
Baudrillards argument more radical than the
Wachowskis

• We cannot peel back the simulacrum and
  disclose the real
• Every attempt to do so is a ruse of power
• The simulacrum is the primal mise-en-scène, the
  symbolic law of Capital itself pure, cruel
  exchange incomprehensible ferocity
  fundamental immorality
• Law, order and the real start to look like
  simulations too
• This is why they must be reverted to

14
The precession of simulacra

• All events are already hyperreal
• A set of signs dedicated exclusively to their
  recurrence as signs
• An indefinitely refracted chain of hyperreal
  events

1978
15
Serial precession
1994
1981
1996
1995
16
Impossibility of isolating the process of
simulation

• The only weapon of power, its only strategy
  against this defection, is to reinject realness
  and referentiality everywhere in order to
  convince us of the reality of the social, of the
  gravity of the economy and the finalities of
  production. For that purpose it prefers the
  discourse of crisis

17
Airborne Toxic Event production of the real
18
Möbian reversibility

• State conspiracy to cover up complicity
• Evidence of collusion and denial of facts
• War on Terror
• Enemy as the West

• Extremist threat to Freedom
• Legitimizes State in suspension of some freedoms
• War on Terror
• Enemies of the West

19
Both extremes miss the point

• Not a question of either/or
• Both sides feverishly adduce the real, moralize
  it one way or the other
• The simulacrum goes on

20
Simulacrum disaster

• The fact that everything just goes on is the
  crisis
• The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that
  the state of emergency in which we live is not
  the exception but the rule.

Walter Benjamin
21
Capital already hyperreal

• it was capital which was the first to feed
  throughout its history on the destruction of
  every referential, of every human goal, which
  shattered every ideal distinction between true
  and false, good and evil, in order to establish a
  radical law of equivalence and exchange, the iron
  law of its power.

22
End of real vs. apperance victory of fact
and model

• Once the real world has been lost, at the same
  time as the world of appearances, the universe
  becomes a universe of fact, a positive universe,
  a universe as is, which no longer even has any
  need to be true.
• Once all transcendence is conjured away, things
  are no longer anything but what they are and,
  such as they are, they are unbearable.
• Baudrillard, The Intelligence of Evil

23
SIMUVAC

• What does SIMUVAC mean? Sounds important.
• Short for simulated evacuation. A new state
  program theyre still battling over funds for.
• But this evacuation isnt simulated. Its real.
• We know that. But we thought we could use it as
  a model.
• A form of practice? Are you saying that you saw
  a chance to use the real event in order to
  rehearse the simulation?We took it right into
  the streets.
• White Noise (139)

24
SIMUVAC

• The more we rehearse disaster, the safer well
  be from the real thing. There is no substitute
  for a planned simulation. If reality intrudes in
  the form of a car crash or a victim falling off a
  stretcher, it is important to remember that we
  are not here to mend broken bones or put out real
  fires. We are here to simulate. Interruptions can
  cost lives in a real emergency.
• White Noise (139)

25
nominal versions of the event
heavy black massfeathery plumeblack
billowing cloudairborne toxic event
26
symptoms of the event
(1) skin irritation and sweaty palms (2)
nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath (3) heart
palpitations and a sense of déjà vu (4)
convulsions, coma, miscarriage