Baudrillard's Simulacra and the Hyperreal

A copy without an original is a sign that imitates nothing that ever existed, or nothing that still exists.1 Baudrillard describes simulation as the generation by models of a real without origin or reality, which he calls a hyperreal.2

Four phases of the image

Baudrillard explains the idea as a sequence. Along the way, the image first masks and perverts a basic reality, and then masks the fact that no basic reality remains. He ties these middle phases to the orders of malefice and sorcery, the latter being an image that merely plays at being an appearance. Only in the last phase does the sign drop all pretence of pointing beyond itself.

The map and the territory

To picture this, Baudrillard turns to a fable by Borges, in which an empire makes a map exactly the same scale as the empire itself, and the map later falls into ruin.3

Examples he gives

In one example, Baudrillard asks the reader to simulate a theft in a large department store and wonders how the guards could be convinced it is only simulated, since for the established order such signs are always of the order of the real. He also argues that Disneyland is presented as imaginary so that the rest of America seems real, though he holds that Los Angeles and the surrounding America are themselves hyperreal.4