Simulation and Simulacra

The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is 
none. The simulacrum is true. 
-Ecclesiaste


The entire Treatise of Baudrillard's Simulation and Simulacra can be found here, very interesting stuff.

A few classes ago we discussed Baudrillard's well-studied article, 'The Precession of Simulacra' about the nature of reality, the image, and the imitation of reality. As we talked, Manuel charted out the relationship between the three core ideas of the 'representation', 'simulation', and 'reality'.

(note: I'm missing the bottom part if anyone knows it)

Such would be the successive phases of the image: 


it is the reflection of a profound reality; 
it masks and denatures a profound reality; 
it masks the absence of a profound reality; 
it has no relation to any reality whatsoever; 
it is its own pure simulacrum

The above quote essentially describes how and image becomes a Simulacra. Throughout the class we tried to delve further into this concept with the help of the above diagram. I'll try to explain my understanding of the diagram as follows:

In one cycle of the image, 'representation' was created during the medieval times in an attempt to depict, and thereby honour, the sublime beauty of 'the idea' (the idea being the inconceivable beauty of 'god'). However it was the concern of the iconoclasts that this representation would so seed itself in the minds of the masses that they would eventually come to revere the images themselves, rather than inconcevable 'idea' they were based upon, without even realizing they were doing so. This was in defence of what they believed to be 'reality'. 

In a way, the iconoclasts were predicting the inevitable evolution of the 'representation' into the 'simulation': the point at which an image begins to replace reality in the mind of the consumer. The distinction between what used to be considered reality from what is now considered simulation becomes successively blurrier. At this point one begins to question whether an objective reality truly exists or not!

When you take subjectivity into account, it seems to me that reality exists somewhere within the intermediary space between 'the Simulation' and 'Reality'. Though life as we live it now is mediated beyond recall, we still exist tangibly within this largely simulated reality, so this is still reality to us. The fakeness of this part of our reality is still loosely related to the 'beauty' of the original idea, and as such can come to represent a purpose for the individual. However the simulation is also created, through time, by the reigning social order. The social order itself acts a mass simulation, or simulacra self-perpetuating and evolving through the new minds it envelopes.

At this point the question of power becomes apparent. Those with power within the simulation matrix reinforce the simulation as icons, but those with true power likely exist beyond the bounds of the simulacra itself. To segue, Kanye West is one icon within this matrix who seems self-reflexively aware of his iconic status and role. His latest efforts have affected a sort of artist merit by expressing this self-reflexivity.

The video itself is very symbolically simulacranal in content, bringing forth ideas of the holy, the icon, and western art historical tradition. It's very similar to another art piece brought to my attention by people who have visited New York (edit: it's because they're both by the same artist, Marco Brambilla). Within the elevator of the Standard building in New York, as one ascends, one finds oneself travelling through the successive layers of hell, purgatory, and heaven. Only the iconography used is strangely familiar, and quite obviously fake, though still strangely enticing. Kind of like the simulacra itself.

Marco Brambilla's Civilization