Baudrillard I found a bit confusing but now after
class I find the concepts a lot simpler, and actually very interesting. The
quote “to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to
feign to have what one doesn’t have. One implies a presence, the other an
absence” stuck out to me in class when we discussed it. The idea of a lot of
what we see as reality is staged I find so interesting. NASA has simulators for
astronauts to try to get the feel of what space will be like before actually
going there. Although it is similar, it is recreating this idea of reality.
What I also found to be so interesting
was the idea of simulacra. Las Vegas is one of my favorite places to visit. I
love how you can go one place and feel like you are in so many different
places. Walking down The Strip you can go from Egypt, to Paris, to New York, to
Italy in a matter of minutes. Everything though has this look about it though
that makes you realize that it isn’t real, but a play on reality. It can be
touched and visited, but the material and they way it all was built is still
very different. “Disneyland exists in order to hide the fact that it is the
real country…Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe
that the rest is real…” This is the same concept as Las Vegas, because Disney
is a real place, but it isn’t considered reality because it isn’t how the real
world is. Disney is meant to be a place that is always happy and a place to
escape. I think how he questions if anything is actually real or not is such an
interesting concept to think about.
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