A simulacrum (plural: simulacra from Latin: simulacrum, which means "likeness, similarity") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing.
The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th
century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a
painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered
a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance
or qualities of the original. Literary critic Fredric Jameson offers photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, where a painting is created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real. Other art forms that play with simulacra include trompe-l'œil, pop art, Italian neorealism, and French New Wave.
Philosophy
Simulacra have long been of interest to philosophers. In his Sophist, Plato
speaks of two kinds of image making. The first is a faithful
reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. The second is
intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to
viewers. He gives the example of Greek statuary,
which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers
on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale,
they would realize it was malformed. This example from the visual arts
serves as a metaphor
for the philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to
distort truth so that it appears accurate unless viewed from the proper
angle. Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in the Twilight of the Idols,
suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of
their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason,
arrive at a distorted copy of reality.
Postmodernist French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal.
According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no
original or no longer has an original (think a copy of a copy without an
original). Where Plato saw two types of representation—faithful and
intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic
reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of
reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which "bears no
relation to any reality whatsoever".
In Baudrillard's concept, like Nietzsche's, simulacra are perceived as
negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic, Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which an accepted ideal or "privileged position" could be "challenged and overturned". Deleuze defines simulacra as "those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal resemblance".
Alain Badiou, in speaking with reference to Nazism about Evil, writes,
"fidelity to a simulacrum, unlike fidelity to an event, regulates its
break with the situation not by the universality of the void, but by the
closed particularity of an abstract set ... (the 'Germans' or the
'Aryans')".
Recreation
Recreational simulacra include reenactments of historical events or replicas of landmarks, such as Colonial Williamsburg and the Eiffel Tower, and constructions of fictional or cultural ideas, such as Fantasyland at The Walt Disney Company's Magic Kingdom.
The various Disney parks have by some philosophers been regarded as the
ultimate recreational simulacra, with Baudrillard noting that Walt Disney World Resort is a copy of a copy, "a simulacrum to the second power". In 1975, Italian author Umberto Eco
argued that at Disney's parks, "we not only enjoy a perfect imitation,
we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and
afterwards reality will always be inferior to it". This is for some an ongoing concern. Examining the impact of Disney's simulacrum of national parks, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, environmentalist Jennifer Cypher and anthropologist
Eric Higgs expressed worry that "the boundary between artificiality and
reality will become so thin that the artificial will become the centre
of moral value".
Eco also refers to commentary on watching sports as sports to the power
of three, or sports cubed. First, there are the players who participate
in the sport (the real), then the onlookers merely witnessing it, and
finally the commentary on the act of witnessing the sport. Visual artist
Paul McCarthy has created entire installations based on Pirates of the Caribbean and theme park simulacra, with videos playing inside the installation.
Caricature
An interesting example of simulacrum is caricature.
When an artist produces a line drawing that closely approximates the
facial features of a real person, the subject of the sketch cannot be
easily identified by a random observer; it can be taken for a likeness
of any individual. However, a caricaturist exaggerates prominent facial
features, and a viewer will pick up on these features and be able to
identify the subject, even though the caricature bears far less actual
resemblance to the subject.
Iconography
Beer (1999: p. 11) employs the term "simulacrum" to denote the formation of a sign or iconographic image, whether iconic or aniconic, in the landscape or greater field of Thangka art and Tantric Buddhist iconography. For example, an iconographic representation of a cloud formation sheltering a deity in a thanka or covering the auspice of a sacred mountain in the natural environment may be discerned as a simulacrum of an "auspicious canopy" (Sanskrit: Chhatra) of the Ashtamangala. Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena approach a cultural universal and may be proffered as evidence of the natural creative spiritual engagement of the experienced environment endemic to the human psychology.
Word usage
The Latinised plural simulacra is interchangeable with the anglicised version simulacrums.
Simulacrum as artificial beings
Simulacra often appear in speculative fiction. Examples of simulacra in the sense of artificial or supernaturally or scientifically created artificial life forms include:
- Automaton – A self-operating robot.
- Artificial animals and replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick and its film adaptation Blade Runner.
- Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio – A puppet that comes to life.
- Feathertop – A scarecrow created and brought to life by a witch.
- Frankenstein's Monster from Frankenstein – A creation of Victor Frankenstein made from various body parts. Frankenstein's Monster was also adapted in DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
- The Universal Pictures film Bride of Frankenstein featured the titular monster.
- Fritz Lang's Metropolis – Featuring "Maria" the robotrix.
- Galatea from Metamorphoses – A statue of a female created by Pygmalion and brought to life by Aphrodite.
- Gargoyles – Statues sculpted to resemble monsters.
- Hatsune Miku – A virtual idol VOCALOID known well among the otaku culture.
- Holograms – Computerized images of anything.
- Homunculus – Small miniature humanoids created through alchemy.
- Karel Čapek's RUR – Originated the word robot.
- Neutrinos from Solaris – A race of creatures made from the memories of humans.
- Pintosmalto – A statue of a man brought to life by a Goddess of Love.
- Robots
- Simulacrum – An illusion spell from Dungeons & Dragons that creates a partially real duplicate of someone, though it only has half the power and abilities of the original.
- Snegurochka – A little girl made of snow.
- Squadron Supreme of America - In Marvel Comics, the Squadron Supreme of America are revealed to be simulacrums created by Mephisto and programmed by the Power Elite so that Phil Coulson can have them be a United States-sponsored superhero team.
- Terracotta Army – Terracotta sculptures of the armies of Qin Shi Huang.
- The Gingerbread Man – A gingerbread man that came to life.
- The Golem of Jewish folklore – A creation of a rabbi.
- Thumbelina – A small girl created by a witch.
- Ushabiti – Egyptian figurines.
- Vasilisa the Beautiful – A doll that came to life.
- Revenant - A robot with the mind of a former human hitman in the Apex legends universe.
Also, the illusions of absent loved ones created by an alien life form in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris can be considered simulacra.
