Plato's allegory of the cave- metaphor for society.
Plato (classical Greek philosopher)
Prisoners- bottom of the cave. Children born into to same life. The cave is really dark, only shadows can be seen that are cast by sunlight seeping through and fire that keeps the cave warm. Prisoners take the shadows (are cast by the cave masters, accidentally or on purpose) to be the real world, that is what the real world is like because they don't know any different.
This reflects the media. Theres the real world, and the image world- what we take as reality.
How commodity culture and the mechanisms that surround it and capitalism create alternative realities, which make reality impossible to access. They disguise the true meaning of the world and distort our understanding of it.
Coca Cola, 1930s campaign. -turned father christmas into red and white, and western. Coca Colas copy of one of the stories of santa claus has become reality. Their is such a long line of copies and repetitions that it is hard to find the original. Baudrillard tries to get back to the origin or the real of the copy.
Study of soft drinks- Samuel McClure and Read Montague.
The unreal having an effect on the real- the image world changing the real world, even tastes and smells.
Emeerged during post-structuralism. Alongside Gilles Deleuze Roland Barthes, and more writers...
Guy Debord- theory of the spectacle. Similar to theory of hyperreality.
A society that lives around a spectacular image of life rather than a real image of life.
Karl Marx argued that commodity has a use value and an exchange value. Baudrillard argued that commodity has a use value and an exchange value, but also between the two has a sign value.
Sign value- all the various things that something connotes. How commodities make us look.
Increasingly in consumerist society advertisers try and ad sign value to objects. Sign value isn't real. A society that is more reliant on the image of things rather than the reality of things.
Simulacra and simulation (1981)
Simulacra- a copy of something that is meant to stand in or replace something. Coca cola stands in for the father christmas myth, replaces it. The simulacra makes it difficult to differentiate from the copy and the original.
When simulacra is copied to simulacra, to simulacra it is hyperreal. The copy is not produced from something real anymore. Copies are copied from copies. Reality is produced from simulacra.
Walt Disney, when doing the drawings for sleeping beauty's castle (logo) from a castle in Prague. I real place, made drawings of this (simulacra). In Disneyland, an actual built version (hyperreal). People visit the castle because it was the inspiration for Disney. The copy is influencing the real world, something that is thousands of years old is visited due to a copy that is much younger.
German christmas markets in England. Light hearted version of Frankfurt, a bit sillier, cliches- a simulacra of the original. They get more popular and spread, copies are made. Birmingham market is three times the size of the one in Frankfurt. The original is lost, turns into an English Christmas tradition. We think we know what a German market is like, but in fact the reality is lost. It is impossible to access the origin and reality of things.
New York city. Is the Manhattan skyline only romantic because we see that it is in films? The feeling of romance is hyperreality. All films are simulacra- copies of what is real.
Ribena. Artificial flavour that we have excepted as blackcurrant when in fact it tastes nothing like it.
We'd rather stare at the wall of Plato's cave rather than face reality. It's depressing.
The Gaze
'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at' (Berger 1972)
Our society is one giant panopticon around women. Women are there for aesthetic value and men cause change in the world.
Hans Memling- 'Vanity' (1485)
Our gaze is never challenged, so we are allowed to look without anyone ever knowing that you are looking.
When the gaze is not returned it allows the person to be objectified.
All art at this time was made by men. Men also only bought art. Art and visual culture is and always has been dominated by men.
The gaze is about power- a male fantasy of domination over women. A reminder to men that they should be dominating. A fiction, a fantasy- not fact.
Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863
Manet 'Olympia' 1863
Birth of Venus doesnt return the gaze, but in a flirty way. Olympia returns the gaze, but in a challenging way. In a dominant position, more guarded body language.
Olympia is reality, she is a prostitute. Birth of Venus is considered art. Being forced to confront that the Birth of Venus image of a woman doesn't exist, you have to pay for it and you will always be challenged. Being confronted with the reality of sexual relationships.
Pornography is not just about sex, its about male dominance. Women are always submissive. The viewer being in control.
Marxist analysis- Men run society and superstructural forms will reflect that and legitimise it.
These images allow more images to be created- they lead to things like wonderbra, women in modern advertising.
Society is a giant panopticon- constant reminders that you have to dress, act, look a certain way- the gaze of an entire culture onto you as an individual woman.
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