Lecture 5 - Reality, Virtuality, Hyperreality (Jean Baudrillard)

Jean Baudrillard - french philosopher, critic, social and cultural theorist, photographer, pionering theorist: semiotics, politcal economy, post modernism, post strucuralism

Coca Cola - illusion, tast the brand, tastes better in your mind

Post Structuralism:
-Gilles Deleuze
-Roland Barthes
-Jean B
-Jacques Dernda
-Helene Cixous
-Michael Foucalt
(Meanings of Signs)

Structuralism:
-Claude Levi-Strauss
-Roland Barthes
-Jacques lacan
-Louis Althusser
-Andre Leroi-Gourham
-Julia Kristeva

Guy Debord - ''Society of the Spectacle'' 1967

Karl Marx - pionering philosopher and political and economical theorist
-developed the 'critique of political economy'
-'labour theory of value'
-argues - capitalism constitutes one kind of 'mode of production' and that it would eventually be replaced by another one

Ferdinand de Saussure
-signified-signifier
-signifier-signified

Marcel Mauss - anthropologist - renowned for his analysis of the 'economy of the gif' in different societies

Georges Batille - renowned for his writings or transgression, death and general economy (gift economies, economies based on 'expenditure without return, e.g. the 'Potlatch')

Jean baudrillard
-Simulacra and Simulation 1981
-theory of simulacra - he developed since the 1970's
-according to him, simulacra are copies either of the thing they are intended to represent and stand in for or in recent history - are merely copies of other copies
-for a long time a controversial concept, the simulacrum as described by Baudrillard has become key

The Matrix - 'the desert of the real itself'

Simulacra:
-reflection of a profound reality
-religion - Catholic Church - body and blood of Christ - not actually as it is bread and wine
-masks and denatures a profound reality
-masks the absence of a profound reality
-sourcery - witchcraft, mythos, evil
-has no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure imulacrum
-Sleeping Beauty's castle (Disneyland Park, California) - exists and can be visited but is a recreation of the film

Coca Cola
-post modern image of Father Christmas
-neither Coke nor Santa are real

Another representation of Simulation
-Christmas markets (German)
-Father Christmas - used to wear green clothing
-1970's - The Loud Family - first reality TV show in America
-1990's - The Real World - reality TV
Charlie Brooker
-highlight bits that they want - to create meanings
Hence TV is not really real because it is hyperreal

Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976)
-Baudrillard - articulated the '3 orders of the Simulacra'
1. The Counterfeit - dominant schema of the classical period
2. Production - dominant schema of the industrial era
3. Simulation - dominant schema in the current code - governed phase

Kool Killer or the Insurrection of Signs
-spring 1972 New York - graffiti
-content neither political nor pornographic

Jean Baudrillard - 'The Gulf War did not take place'
-In the aftermath of the first conflict in the Persian Gulf between America and Iraq in the early 1990's, Baudrillard controversially claimed 'it did not take place'
-not intended to suggest it didn't happen...

Seminar Notes - The Gaze

-Manifestations
-Power of looking
-Gender

John Berger
-men look at women
-women look at themselves being looked at
-glance - judgement - reminding them of how they should look
-the nudes
  -naked - yourself
  -nude - object, fugure, someboday else's idea
  -(the distinction between the two)

Hans Memling 'Vanity' 1485

-mans idea of woman
-painting for a man by a man
-the dog represents fidelity - loyalty towards woman
-title - 'vanity' - she likes to look at herself - objectifying her - attaack
-allows you to laugh at her for being vain - aggressive
-religion - harder on women than men

Page 3
-designed for men to look at
-'News in brief' - women quotes and their opinions on what is going on in the world - allows men to oggle women but laugh as well as she can't be sexy and intellectual at the same time - sexist joke

Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863

-inviting gaze

-passive female

Ingres 'Le Grand Odalisque' 1814

-2 gazes - power and objectification

-men gazing at woman

-West gazing at East

-oriental, sexual fantasy

-less sophisticated - more available

-patronising

Manet 'Bar at the Folies Bergenes' 1882

-put into the position of a man looking at a woman

-close proximity

-woman not meeting/challenging gaze

Jeff Wall 'Picture for Women' 1979

-still male dominated

-photograph (paintings are lies)

Portfolio Task 2 - On Popular Music

Quickly read Adorno's (1941) article 'On Popular Music'. In no more than a few paragraphs, summarise his ideas on pop music, concentrating on key points such as 'standardisation', 'psuedo-individualisation' etc.
Post a link to a YouTube pop video that, in your opinion, epitomises Adorno's sentiments. Explain why, trying to emphasise the links to the wider 'culture industry' in general.


Adorno claimed that the fundamental characteristic of popular music is 'standardization'. He also compares pop music in an inferior way to 'serious music'. He believes that pop music is predictable and pre-digestive, that if you like the style of a song then you will like other songs with that same style. This means the consumers decision has already been for them. Adorno says that ''Structural Standardization Aims at Standard Reactions'' (Adorno, p76), which therefore reduces the effort on the part of those working in the music industry, as they know how people will react. He explains that the whole structure of pop music standardized, even when an artist tries to be different, because they are still conforming to a set of rules, for example; the breakdown of a song consists of a chorus and verse pattern, and therefore the consumer has ''the same familiar experience''(Adorno, p74).

Adorno goes on speaking about the correlation between muscial standardization and 'pseudo-individualization', he states that ''Concentration and control in our culture hide themselves in their manifestation. Unhidden they would provoke resitance.''(Adorno, p78), meaning that if people knew they were being controlled they would resist against it, so therefore they are under the illusion of individualism, even though what they listen to is 'pre-digested'.

Adorno also believes that people who listen to popular music do so as a distraction from their everyday lives. It does not demand their attention, however it produces passivity through rhythmic repetitiveness, and emotional adjustment, that music is an escape from reality. The listeners don't realise this repetitiveness, as their thinking has been done for them.

[Adorno, T., (1941), 'On Popular Music' In 'Studies in Philosophy and Social Science', New York: Institute of Social Research]

Westlife's cover of 'Uptown Girl', epitomises Adorno's beliefs about popular music. The fact that it is cover of an original is an obvious reason for this choice, with Billy Joel first releasing the song in 1983 it reached number one in the UK charts, proving it's inital popularity. Westlife knew this in 2001 when they released their cover, which also reached number one in the UK chart, and became the band's biggest selling single in the UK. Adorno's idea of music being 'pre-digestive' is apparent here, with the band working deliberately to set out to win favour with the people, knwoing the reactio nthe first time around. The doo-wop beat and close harmonies, makes the song catchy and memorable, which is common within popular music.

Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' -


Westlife's cover -