User:InFerNoBeasTz/Hyperreality

Reality TV and Hyperreality
Reality TV is where the director creates an authentic image of different scenarios with real characters. Reality TV and Hyperreality are linked very strongly to each other. Jean Baudrillard’ theory of hyperreality links to how the audience’s shock and the overreactions of reality TV. This is where the audience can not differentiate whether reality TV is authentic or false. Baudrillard argues that what the audience views reality TV on their TV screens does not resemble to any kind of reality we see in real life. Jean Baudrillard believes that hyperreality is at the most harmful when it is on our TV screen. He argues that hyperreality prevents political action, as we can not tell what is real or fake. For example, reality TV show Geordie Shore shows how young adults from Newcastle are living the party lifestyle all the time. In reality they are not living the party lifestyle all the time, as the editors make cuts and produce unrealistic settings for the people on the show. The audience realises that the setting is staged and it is not part of reality. However, the characters of the reality TV shows have a character which underlines a grey area for the audience, making the audience unable to differentiate whether reality TV is real or fake. Reality TV is able to gain its audience through being able to combine the elements of reality and fake.

The Matrix
One of the biggest examples in hyperreality is used in the Movie The Matrix. The matrix uses Jean Baudrillard's theory of Hyperreality and how the Matrix is a simulation of a world.

Hyperrealism in the film The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix is a great Cyberpunk film and mainly tackles the question 'what is real?' The film however also captures Hyperrealism. Through virtual reality being shown in the Matrix it shows us the hypereal world as well as the computer generated virtual world. As we watch the film Morpheus seems like a hyperreal theorist himself because he explains everything to Neo and makes us audience see the illusions and representations. One of the famous quotes made by Morpheus was when he tells Neo, "I promised you the truth, Neo, and the truth is that the world you were living in was a lie." We see what Baudrillard envision in one of the scenes of illusions when we see a scene of the matrix sucking in Neo into the Matrix or the Virtual world. One of the cinematography used was a zoom shot into the binary codes. This is a virtual world made by an AI. In the original script Morpheus was mention to mention that Neo is living in the world Baudrillard envisioned. One famous saying by Neo is at the end of the movie where he says “I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders and boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.” This was as baudrillard said people are gonna control the simulations themselves and make worlds of their own desires and not be slaves to images.

Part One: “Welcome to the desert of the real.”
In one of the Scene's we see hyperreality being explained by Morpheus, he mentions Baudrillard's first chapter in S&S/ "Welcome to the desert of the real" was explained by Baudrillard as he believed that the world is no longer "real." But it has become Hyperreal instead and everything is now a simulation of reality from the real world.

Simulation in Matrix
The Matrix is showing us a world that is not real a hyperreal Simulated world created by people. Umberto Eco and Baudrillard have previously said that the Matrix is a place created and controlled by AI for a reason. This is similar to our current world such as Disneyland. Just like the matrix is controlling us with a recreated simulated world like the AI and is using our energy to keep us in the illusion. We get so into these hyperreal worlds of fantasy which makes us forget, like locked prisoners. Eco in Travels in Hyperreality (1986) mentions how in Disneyland we have to follow certain rules by the Corporation (AI) whereas in the Matrix it's the same because they are being watched in the watchful eyes of the agents. Only certain people like neo try to protest against the system just like Jean Baudrillard and other theorists.

Non-fiction books

 * Il costume di casa (1973 – English translation: Faith in Fakes: Travels in Hyperreality, 1986)

Books

 * English translations


 * Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
 * Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra", in Media and Cultural Studies : Keyworks, Durham & Kellner, eds. ISBN 0-631-22096-8