Simulacrum
A simulacrum or simulacrum (plural: simulacra or simulakra ) is a real or imagined thing that is related to or similar to something or someone else . The Latin expression simulacrum is derived from simulo ("image, image , mirror image , dream image , idol , illusion ") from simul ("similar, equal"). The meaning can be meant derogatory in the sense of a deceptive appearance, but it can also be understood positively in the context of a concept of productive fantasy .
Simulacrum also refers to simulations and artificially created beings such as golem and homunculus .
Use at Lucretius
The precise word form of Simulacrum goes back to the atomistic perception theory of the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius . According to this, things create their own visibility by constantly sending out fine layers of their outer shell into space, which then leave corresponding prints on the retina . He called these flying layers or "skins" simulacren.
Simulacrum as an instrument of knowledge
According to Roland Barthes , a simulacrum reconstructs its object through selection and recombination and thus reconstructs it. The result is a "world that is similar to the first one, but does not want to copy it, but rather makes it visible". In this respect, the simulacrum is also a characteristic of structuralist activity:
“The aim of every structuralist activity […] is to reconstitute an 'object' in such a way that this reconstitution reveals the rules according to which it functions (what its 'functions' are). The structure is actually only a simulacrum of the object, but a targeted, 'interested' simulacrum, since the imitating object brings out something that remains invisible in the natural object or, if you prefer, incomprehensible. "
Simulacrum as a trace
Jacques Derrida sees the simulacrum as a feature of the trace (and thus as a contrast to Walter Benjamin's concept of the aura ):
"Since the trace is not a property, but the simulacrum of a property that dissolves, shifts, refers, actually does not take place, the extinction is part of its structure." ( Jacques Derrida : Die différance . In: Peter Engelmann (ed.): Postmodernism and deconstruction . Reclam, Stuttgart 1990. p. 107.)
Media theory
The simulacrum is also a central term in contemporary theories of virtuality or virtualization, especially by Gilles Deleuze , Paul Virilio , Pierre Klossowski and above all Jean Baudrillard . Baudrillard differentiates between various historical forms of simulacrum ( imitation , production , simulation ) and deals particularly with the simulacrum of simulation as the dominant simulacrum of contemporary society determined by mass media . According to Baudrillard, the distinguishing feature of this modern simulacrum is that the distinction between original and copy , model and copy , reality and imagination has become impossible and the signs and images have given way to a general "lack of reference".
In constructivist- oriented media theories , too , a factual dissolution of the classical distinctions and differences is stated and examined under the catchwords of virtualization, metamedialization, autopoietization , autologization , cybernetization and fictionalization .
Literary and cinematic reception of the term
Simulacra (original title: The Simulacra ) is the title of a novel by the American writer Philip K. Dick from 1964. Dick also often used this term as a synonym for " Android ", which means a robot that looks and acts humanly.
Simulacron-3 is the title of a science fiction novel by the American author Daniel F. Galouye from 1964, which deals with the idea of an illusory world completely simulated within a computer program. The material was filmed twice: once as Welt am Draht (1973) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , again as The 13th Floor - Are you what you think? (1999). The film The Matrix (1999) also takes up the idea of the world as a simulacrum. Right at the beginning of the first part of the Matrix trilogy, the book Simulacra & Simulation by Baudrillard can be seenbriefly, which serves as the protagonist's hiding place for money by being hollowed out and only simulating its own existence as an actual book as well as that in language - and especially in the language simulacrum writing - defined intellectual content regarding simulacra andsimulation replaced or exchangedby money as promissory note simulacra and barter goods simulation.
literature
- Jean Baudrillard : The symbolic exchange and death (= batteries. 14). Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-88221-215-2 .
- Jean Baudrillard: Agony of the Real (= Merve title. 81). Merve-Verlag, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-920986-99-7 .
- Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1995, ISBN 0-472-06521-1 (partly identical to Agony of the Real ).
- Roland Barthes : The structuralist activity. In: Kursbuch . 5, May 1966, pp. 190-196.
- Jacques Derrida : The différance. In: Peter Engelmann (Ed.): Postmodernism and deconstruction. Texts by contemporary French philosophers (= Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. 8668). Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-15-008668-X .
- Christa Karpenstein-Eßbach: Introduction to media cultural studies (= UTB 2489 cultural studies, media and communication studies ). Fink, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-8252-2489-9 .
See also
Web links
- Richard Heinrich: expression and image. Knowledge, signs, likeness
- Roland Barthes: The structuralist activity , in: Kursbuch 5, May 1966, pp. 190–196
- John Tufail: The Illuminated Snark . An inquiry into the relationship between text and illustration in The Hunting of the Snark . 36. S, February 13, 2004 (p. 29ff: Example for the use of Simulacra)
- Ausonius: In simulacrum Occasionis et Poenitentiae