Umberto Eco and Hyper-reality Concept - Essay Example

UMBERTO ECO- HYPER-REALITY Umberto Eco’s brilliant of contemporary culture and its obsession with hyper-reality was first found in his work ‘Travels in Hyper-reality’. Written in 1975, this essay was a commentary on America’s theme parks – more precisely the Disneyland; that Eco saw as an experiment in hyper-reality. He argued that the main reason why we construct these hyper-structures is our dissatisfaction with reality. We are thus obsessed with creating something better than reality. Closely connected to the concept of hyper-reality are then other technologies such as nanotechnology, human cloning and artificial intelligence. While it is a clearly tangible technology, hyper-reality is a concept still simmering in the minds which we use sometimes to describe something as unreal as the Disneyland structures. Is it then just postmodernist gibberish when writers like Eco and Baudrillard came up with the concept of hyper-reality? We shall now discuss Eco’s contention with the help of other significant writings on the subject. According to postmodern writers and by that we do not mean Eco alone, hyper-reality is a representation of reality which is better than the original. Eco argues for example that a recreated diorama is more effective than the actual scene (Eco 1986:8). Jean Baudrillard supports this argument when he says that Americans like to see reproductions of their heroes and monuments as simulacra. Simulacra is thus something which is "more real" than the original (1988:41). Meaghan Morris thus defines simulacra as something where, "the true (like the real) begins to be reproduced in the image of the pseudo, which begins to become the true (1988:5)." In the same vein, Umberto Eco argues that for Americans "the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication (1986:6)." With these views, Eco urges us to go on a "journey into Hyperreality in search of instances where the American imagination demands the real thing, and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake (1986:7)." Umberto Eco maintains that America is obsessed with simulations. The never ending series of hyper structures that recreate reality serve as a proof of this obsession with something that is better than the original. Baudrillard (1983) puts it a little differently but supports Eco’s contention. He argues that the reason American like simulations is because they are perpetually trapped in the present. For Baudrillard, it is not just the monuments which are reproduced to make them a part of the present but instead the entire America psyche is frozen in hyper-reality. "America cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and founding truth...it lives in a perpetual present...it lives in perpetual simulation (Baudrillard 1988:76)." Disneyland is not the only “authentic reproduction” that we see in the United States, there are several other such sites including the New Salem Historic Site. This is an interesting reconstruction of the village where Abraham Lincoln lived for six years from 1831 to 1837. A brochure that is given to visitors as they enter this reproduced village describes the park as "Lincolns New Salem," and according to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, "The six years Lincoln spent in New Salem formed a turning point in his career. From the gangling youngster who came to the village in 1831 with no definite objectives, he became a man of purpose as he embarked upon a career of law and statesmanship." This claim is supported by other documents especially Sandburgs biography, in which he called New Salem "Lincolns `Alma Mater" (1954:743) and Lincolns "nourishing mother" (1954:55). Close analysis of these claims would reveal the frontier psyche of Americans. This frontier theory states that America was formed after many difficulties and hardships. Similarly American heroes are also a reflection of this. They are also a product of many hardships and obstacles as we saw in the case of Abraham Lincoln. Whether we accept this or not, but America’s interest in the past and simulations of the same is rooted in its frontier psyche. And then as if to believe that the fairytales were actually for real, that a past we read about actually existed, we term recreated hyper-real structure “authentic reproductions”. Ada Louise Huxtable (1992:24) raises that point in the New York Review of Books: "It is hard to think of a more dangerous, anomalous, and shoddy perversion of language and meaning than the term authentic reproduction." By calling it a reproduction, the park administration accepts that this is created in the image of the original. In this way, they aim or what Taylor and Johnson term "historical verisimilitude”- i.e. a convincing reproduction based on the original so that it looks and feels like that period. Thus it gives a feel of the original but is simply a convincing reproduction of reality. New Salem is one example of attachment with the past. If Americans had no interest in the past, it would have been useless to recreate such sites and monuments. But the fact that people throng these places is evidence to the fact that Americans like to know that the past they read about actually existed. They want to have a ‘feel’ of that past and the number of visitors that arrive at themed parks everyday is enough to indicate their attachment and interest in the past. Thus Eco’s picture of an America that is obsessed with the now and the present is more his own imagination than the actual everyday America. If we try to decode hyper-reality of Disney or such other sites following the work of Zipes (1979), we shall have two different meanings. One is rather pessimistic view, supported by (Wallace 1981, Haraway 1984), which furthers the notion that these sites are exploitative in nature. This exploitation exists in many different forms such as strengthening of political forces, creating a false image of the reality and manipulating the imagination. There is however a second view as well. This view is more optimistic and is rooted in the hope for a better life. When we enter sites like Disneyland and others, we are immediately surrounded by beautiful structures adorned with simplicity of the past and this offers hope that life could actually be like this. The pristine images of the past are presented to offer a hope for transformation as Zipes writes (1979:119) writes about the story of Abraham Lincoln when he describes it as, the "folk tale motif of the swineherd who becomes a prince." Umberto Eco is thus essentially a decoder. His methods of decoding may be defective and thus we cannot trust them completely. Eco was concerned with semiotics- a study of signs. In the preface of his books, he writes: In these pages I try to interpret and to help others interpret some "signs". These signs are not only words, or images; they can also be forms of social behavior, political acts, artificial landscapes. [- - -] I believe it is my job as a scholar and a citizen to show how we are surrounded by "messages," products of political power, of economic power, of the entertainment industry and the revolution industry, and to say that we must know how to analyze and criticize them. (ix) It was thus Eco’s job to see hidden meanings behind artificial landscapes. But we accept his meaning as the ultimate meaning would be unfair to those who created these structures. We do not know about their real motives but on the surface, there appears to be nothing wrong with reproducing the past or creating futuristic sites. They are a good source of healthy entertainment and may also offer a chance in education. Eco’s main contention is that Americans want more- that they are not satisfied with the real and thus crave hyper-reality. "To speak of things that one wants to connote as real, these things must seem real. The completely real becomes identified with the completely fake. Absolute unreality is offered as real presence." (p.7) A very strange and interesting point arises when we closely study the concept of Simulation/Simulacra- something on which hyper-reality is based (Baudrillard, 1981). Simulation is something we create with the image of the reality in mind. It is blending of reality and representation and the lines that separate the two blur in the process. Simulacrum on the other hand is defined as something that arises from no original reality. According to Gilles Deleuze (1990) "the simulacrum is an image without resemblance" (p. 257) Jean Baudrillard (1994) traces the transformation of reality into four stages on which the last stage is simulacrum which “has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum" (SS p.6). Deleuze, Baudrillard, and several other theorists argue that simulacra are what give rise to hyper-reality and creation of a world which has partially stimulated. This concept has been close connected with capitalism and its obsession with mass production. Frederic Jameson (1990) argues that one of the primary conditions of capitalism is creation a "world with an unreality and a free floating absence of "the referent"’ (p. 17). However from our discussion of hyper-reality, we had gathered that it was an attempt to improve upon the reality which means that it does have a referent. The concepts of simulacrum and hyper-reality should thus be treated separately or hyper-reality must be redefined to remove the word reality from it. This is a point of contention and one that can be understood if we trace the origin and development of hyperreality. Eco and other theorists maintain that hyper-reality is grounded in many things including rise of capitalism, technological advancement, and consumerism and to some extent even religion. The critics of hyper-reality as we can call Eco and some other theories contend that hyper-reality gives rise to senseless reproduction which is closely connected with the concept of mass production. In this case, when reality is produced and reproduced with the help of technology, the better and hyper versions of the original become far more important than the real thing itself. Ferdinand Saussure’s (1959) model for the sign indicates that such structures and reproductions act like hollow signifiers and serve no purpose at all. The loss of materiality is also indicated as hyper-real objects dislocate real objects. The main objection is that hyper-reality gives birth to loss of boundaries. In other words, the distance between far and near, real and unreal that Paul Virilio calls a "crisis of representation". (p. 112). Virilio believes that it is the ‘vacuum of speed’ which has given technology the power to alter our perceptions. He feels that this speed “gives way to the televised instantaneity of a prospective observation, of a glance that pierces through the appearances of the greatest distances and the widest expanses" (p. 31). Guy Debord (1977) who postulated the theory of capitalist mode of reproduction believed that speed and technology have affected our perceptions in the same way as mass production did. They are powerful even though utterly meaningless. But Steven Best and Douglas Kellner choose to disagree with Debord and his colleagues as they argue that: "this is not to say that "representation" has simply become more indirect or oblique, as Debord would have it, but that in a world where the subject/object distance is erased […] and where signs no longer refer beyond themselves to an existing, knowable world, representation has been surpassed […] an independent object world is assimilated to and defined by artificial codes and simulation models" (DBT pg. web). While the definitions of hyper-reality may differ; they all point to almost the same element which makes conceptual use of hyper-reality easier- at least within the literature. However the same cannot be said of the contrasting term reality. Eco fails to point out what exactly is reality. What is the reality which needs to be improved upon in order to create hyper-reality? Is it the reality existing outside the theme park, or the reality that was there many decades or centuries ago, or is reality something that lies within our minds and is based on our perceptions. If reality is a matter of perception then what we see at the theme park may constitute reality for some people- at least for children it most certainly does. Baudrillard himself agrees that reality itself has become a fairy-tale and it is "now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real" (1994: p. 21). Eco’s arguments on hyper-reality are flawed for they choose not to study the other side of the issue i.e. reality. He fails to make it clear what he understands by reality because what we see inside a theme park may constitute reality for some. At least it is the reality of the theme park and it doesn’t indicate America’s obsession with the present. Rather it highlights their interest both in the past as well as the future. Bibliography Baudrillard, Jean 1988 America. 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Epic Encounters: Culture Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Sandburg, Carl 1954 Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years, One-Volume Edition. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw Hill, 1959. Virilio, Paul. The Lost Dimension. New York: Semiotext(e) Publishers, 1991. Wallace, Michael 1981 Visiting the Past: History Museums in the United States. Radical History Review 25: 63-96. Zipes, Jack 1979 Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales. Austin: University of Texas Press. Read More