Reality or fantasy? Or can you determine the difference?
In this week’s class we discussed Baudrillard, and his ideas of the virtual space in which we live, Simulacra. We live our lives through simulations of life rather than real life, our reality becomes secondary to our virtual space. This is a predominately postmodernism take on life. Being digital natives we could say that facebook is our simulacra, that the photos we post up on facebook the day after a night out become the actual night out itself. Therefore we construct lifestyles that we have to adhere to, just look at celebrities for example, they view themselves in magazine and online all the time, and so does this become their reality? This is the danger when you can no longer distinguish between reality and the simulacra, the line between public and privacy is blurred. Activity like this arise the question is this why so many celebrities develop mental disorders, such as Mel Gibson and Catherine Zeta Jones who both struggle with a bipolar disorder. Is this due to the unrealistic expectations of this virtual space we live in?
With modern day technology the simulacra is more and more accessible, the development of smart phones for example, they change the simulacra, compressing time and space to determine how we behave. The development of the iphone was a game changer; it alters how we think about our lives and how we live them, it allows us to be in two places at once, the virtual space created by the ipod and physical space. Even with the new ipad, we carry with us more technology than was available in the 1960’s, I can’t help but think are these developments sustainable, surely there has to be an end, because I believe if we will continue to live within the simulacra then we will eventually live in a very inhumane and unsociable world, where human interaction is less abundant. However when I was shown an app of Alice in Wonderland, I too became a fanatic, maybe this was because I viewing with a post modernism opinion, in other words ‘it’s pretty, I must have it’ but it proves that the more interactive it is the more captivating it is.
Appadurai a contemporary social-cultural anthropologist who has interesting views on the simulacra; he believes it is made up of spaces:
- Ethnoscape (multicultural space)
- Finanscape (a virtual space where u never handle money)
- Mediascape (difficulty determining if a show is set up or reality e.g. - only way is Essex.)
I believe these simulacra in which we live our lives can be dangerous to a certain extent just look at interactive video game players for example, they have created a character and live their lives’ as if they are these characters, many develop mental health disorders, or physical illnesses, like obesity or clots due to their addictive personality and the belief that the simulacrum is reality. So it is safe to say that our consciousness shapes our reality, if we allow ourselves to become too absorbed in the simulacra we could loss ourselves.