Richard Prince

Hyperreal & Simulation... Jean Baudrillard

Simulation is the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented . . . the representations become more important than the "real thing"

Four Orders of Simulation

    1. signs thought of as reflecting reality (re-presenting "objective" truth)
    2. signs mask reality: reinforces notion of reality
    3. signs mask the absence of reality
            -Disneyworld
    4. signs become simulacra - they have no relation to reality; they simulate a simulation
            -Gulf War was a computer game


Hyperreal is a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra.


Jean Baudrillard argues that today we only experience prepared realities...
'The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. . . The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal. . . which is entirely in simulation.'

Research on Hyperreality 

Hyperreality is thought to be a consequence of the age that we live in. Hyperrealism is a postmodern philosophy that deals in part with semiotics, or the study of the signs that surround us in everyday life and what they actually mean. For example, a king may wear a crown that symbolizes his title and power. The crown itself is meaningless, but it has come to take on the meaning that society has given it. The reality of the crown and the hyperreality of what it stands for are interwoven.
A popular way of understanding hyperreality is through celebrity culture. Celebrities who reach a point at which every aspect of their lives is taken care of by someone else are said to live in a hyperreal world. They lose the ability to interact with people on a normal level and are cocooned in hyperreality.

Globalisation

Andreas Gursky makes huge, colour photographs well- known for their perceptive and critical look at the effect of capitalism and globalisation on contemporary life. He has concentrated on commercial, business and tourist locations, making work that draws attention to today’s escalating 'high-tech' industry and global markets.

Gursky comments on society today how it has slowly changed into a place that has become heavily dependent upon technology but also how everything is becoming mass produced. This image depicts rows and rows of factory workers(often from third work origin), the monotonous lines suggest the monotony of their every day job; they are merely a cog in the process of making more money. This can be seen when looking at it next to the image of supermarket the workers almost become like the items they could be making. The way in which Gursky presents these images is key to its message; He blows them up to huge sizes so that people look tiny in comparison to show the large scale of the growing issue of globalization and capitalism.

Research on Communication Theory

Transactional Model

Transactional Model: assumes that people are connected through communication; they engage in transaction. Firstly, it recognizes that each of us is a sender-receiver, not merely a sender or a receiver. Secondly, it recognizes that communication affects all parties involved. So communication is fluid/simultaneous. This is how most conversation are like. The transactional model also contains ellipses that symbolize the communication environment (how you interpret the data that you are given). Where the ellipses meet is the most effect communication area because both communicators share the same meaning of the message.

Mechanistic: This view considers communication as a perfect transaction of a message from the sender to the receiver. (as seen in the diagram above) 
Psychological: This view considers communication as the act of sending a message to a receiver, and the feelings and thoughts of the receiver upon interpreting the message.
Social Constructionist: This view considers communication to be the product of the interactants sharing and creating meaning (meanings within culture/understanding of language etc.)
Systemic: This view considers communication to be the new messages created via “through-put”, or what happens as the message is being interpreted and re-interpreted as it travels through people.
Critical: This view considers communication as a source of power and oppression of individuals and social groups

Objectification... The Gaze... Voyeurism

• the spectator’s gaze: the gaze of the viewer at an image of a person
• the intra-diegetic gaze: a gaze of one depicted person at another within the world
• the direct [or extra-diegetic] address to the viewer: the gaze of a person depicted looking out of the frame as if at the viewer, with associated gestures and posture
• the look of the camera - the way that the camera itself appears to look at the people depicted; less metaphorically, the gaze of photographer.

...other types of gaze which are less often mentioned:

• the gaze of a bystander - the gaze of another individual in the viewer’s social world catching the latter in the act of viewing - this can be highly charged, e.g. when the image is erotic
• the averted gaze - a depicted person’s noticeable avoidance of the gaze of another, or of the camera lens or artist (and essentially the viewer)
• the editorial gaze - the whole institutional process by which some portion of the photographer's gaze is chosen for use and emphasis.

Research on John Berger

The gaze, this is the ways in which viewers look at images of people and to the gaze of those depicted within it. The term 'the male gaze' has become somewhat of a feminist cliché for referring to the voyeuristic way in which men objectify women.
Men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at. John Berger argues as early as the Renaissance movement women were depicted as being aware of being seen by a male spectator and at least from the seventeenth century, paintings of female nudes reflected the woman’s submission to the owner of both the woman and the painting. He noted that ‘almost all post-Renaissance European sexual imagery is frontal - either literally or metaphorically - because the sexual protagonist is the spectator or owner looking at it. He advanced the idea that the realistic depiction of things in oil paintings and later in colour photography, represented a desire to possess the things, even women if being depicted in this certain way.
Berger insisted that women were still ‘depicted in a different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him.
In advertising the gaze is also prominent especially that of the man. A camera lens can be seen as a substitute for the eye of an imaginary male onlooker. Such advertisements appear to imply a male point of view, even though the intended viewer is often a woman. So the women who look at these ads are being invited to identify both with the person being viewed and with an implicit, opposite-sex viewer. 

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Nobuyoshi Araki

 
Within this image by Araki three gazes can be established most obviously there is the domineering gaze of the camera, whose presence is somewhat personified into an ominous male character looming over the vulnerable woman (we assume the gender as the woman seems sexually defeated which could only occur with a male domination). The woman is depicted lying limply over a table as if placed there by the ominous character. The overpowering camera equipment takes a male stance over the woman and with the third leg suggesting the male genitalia it appears obvious where the situation is leading. The woman is defenseless against the metaphorical male figure.
The second gaze comes from the woman herself; which is not returning the deviant gaze of the camera but out toward the photographer or viewer of the image. This immediately suggests that she has no wish in taking part in this action and also that confirms her vulnerable state as she looks to the audience for help. That leads us onto the gaze of the photographer or the view, putting the onus on us whether to either become part of this and taking a voyeuristic stance or to intervene with the sexual dominance.