Welcome to the Desert of the Real

By Ruth Skilbeck. 


Just re-watched the Matrix. "Welcome to the desert of the Real" that famous line ‘mis’quoted by Morpheus (great name!). Apparently Baudrillard wasn't too happy about the Wachowski Brothers 'misinterpretation' of his famous line about the simulacrum taking it literally as the post apocalyptic 'real' world destroyed by humans; instead of the more sophisticated reference to language and impossibility of connecting to ‘the Real‘  beyond the sign and signifier, that was developed from Saussure’s early semiology, by Lacan. 

Many scholars will point out that Baudrillard's objection to the Wachowski Bros interpretation of his work was also connected to their idea of the matrix as a "simulacrum" which is constructed to hide a deeper truth, namely: a dystopian system of oppression, which is definitely a misinterpretation of what Baudrillard calls "simulacrum".*

However, ironically perhaps the Wachowskis' conception of the matrix as a simulacrum does serve as an example of the kind of insecure fearful society that my reading of Baudrillard's work suggests is produced through - and productively synonymous with- simulated versions of reality or hyperreality.

With the apocalyptic images of environmental catastrophe, war, conflict, and nuclear meltdowns conveyed continuously by the media, and the panopticon theories of digital media communication taking hold in the paranoid imagination of many, it may seem that both ‘mis’interpretations have morphed into their own constituitive forms of hyperreality in contemporary media discourse.

*Thanks to Claudia Perner for discussing these ideas with me on Facebook.