The Simulacrum

French sociologist Jean Baudrillard believed, and concluded, that the definite boundary between art and reality has completely diminished. The reason for this; both have collapsed into the universal simulacrum.
The simulacrum comes into existence when the distinction between a representation and the real thing breaks down. Moving from a reflection of the basic reality, through to an image that bears no relation to any reality whatsoever.
An artist named Henri Jacobs did a piece, called "Surface Research", which, emphasises on the effect and practice of the Simulacrum.

For you visual types, here is just one of his representations.

Self portrait iconoclasm by stabbing

To see other examples of this project just clink on the link below.
http://surfaceresearch-hj.blogspot.co.uk/2011_03_01_archive.html

The Divine Irreference of Images

To make it easier i have split Baudrillard's conclusions of the simulacrum and simulation into four different examples.

Illness - There are to sides to simulation; to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one truly has. To simulate is, as expected, to do the exact opposite. To pretend to have what one does not actually have. Simulation, however, is not as simple as just pretending.

"Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littre).

To pretend is to hold on to a sense of reality, but simulation threatens the difference between the real and the imaginary. (The placebo effect is a good example of this in everyday life). Baudrillard believes that this simulation of symptoms means medicine loses its meaning because it only treats "real" illnesses  and illness can no longer be taken as a fact of nature.

Psychoanalysis - Psychiatrists say they can not be deceived by simulation, for there is a particular order in the succession of symptoms of which the simulator is ignorant. But the debate remains, what can medicine do with the duplication of illness in a discourse that is no longer either true or false?

Military - Traditionally, the military punishes any simulators, according to a standard principle of identification. They make no distinction, and no attempt to distinguish, between a good simulator and a "real" homosexual or "madman". With a naive attitude of, "if he is this good at acting crazy, it's because he is". By submerging the principle of truth they regard, in this sense, all crazy people to be simulating or visa-versa.

Religion - All of this finally returns to religion and the simulacrum of divinity.

"I forbade that there be any simulacra in the temples because divinity that animates nature can never be represented".

In essence, it can be represented, but with every multiplication of an icon in simulacra, does it not lose its meaning? Iconoclasts feared this exact outcome. The power and divinity of "God" being portrayed in the visible, machinery of icons. They could live with the idea of distorted truth. But their despair came from the idea that the image did not conceal anything at all. Is God not just his own Simulacrum?
Western faith believed a sign could refer to a depth of meaning, that it can be exchanged for meaning - the best example being God himself. If god can be reduced to a series of signs that constitute faith then the whole system become weightless. A gigantic simulacrum!


Living in the wake of the withering signified

"The public does not want to know what Napoleon III said to William of Prussia. It wants to know whether he wore beige trousers and whether he smoked a cigar."
         -  Pope John Paul I

For a month in early spring the Photographer's Gallery near Leicester Square was host to The Bill Brandt room. The press handout described it as a 'walk in magazine': a three dimensional version of The Face.