Comments on: Will the Real America Please Stand Up?

By: D_LAURA

D_LAURA — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:56:13 +0000

it’s not just a matter of wanting reality to become a projection of a projection of what actually is, it is that there is nothing authentic with how we experience the world, because simulacrum mediates this.

the simulacra is an interpretation of a reality that is there — it exists; but, like you said, how we understand reality is through these different representations and channels. it has become difficult to differentiate between what actually is and what (and how it) is being projected.

i think you will like works by lyotard; and also some of the poststructuralists like barthes, derrida, and focault.

personally, though, i find baudrillard can be extremist, though i find his thoughts on simulacra and exchange value particularly profound. i think these theories are such an interesting way to understand and interrogate our relationship with the world/our existence; it’s such a lightbulb moment when we come to realise how much salience these theories can have (and do).

By: Lorna Dietz

Lorna Dietz — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:27:45 +0000

Tsk, tsk, tsk, Lauren… Let me intone it to you again: YOUR PERCEPTION IS YOUR REALITY.

Miss you, hon! Let’s get that meditation and visualization exercises going… I know I promised you something. Coming soon!

Believe me, the cinematic glow you feel about San Francisco is the reason why I’ve resisted leaving it for the longest time. And now that I’m a visitor, the San Francisco Bay Area continues to unravel its amazing technicolor coat of mystery, glamor, and lessons in real life. Although life can be “blah!” in my white picket fence neighborhood of Illinois, my Winter Wonderland will certainly ground me…

Thanks for your experiences, ghoulish that they may be!

By: tish

tish — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:22:22 +0000

i remember the reflexivity in film class. but this is more, radical...perhaps? mwah. miss you. tishs last blog post..inasmuch as

By: Baddie

Baddie — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:10:36 +0000

I shall spend the rest of the day fantasizing about Godzilla wreaking havoc in San Francisco during the zombie apocalypse. Thank you.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:08:28 +0000

Hey, that’s awesome! I’m reading that book right now, or trying to anyway since everything after the first chapter is pretty much just flying over my head. I did reach that bit about the Bonaventure Hotel and it struck me that high-end condominium developments over here are pretty much designed to be self-contained cities too – maybe not so much in terms of architecture as the way the entire development is planned. They’ve got shops, restaurants, and supermarkets only a few feet away from the units, and the newer ones are even going to lease office spaces to BPO’s so that the residents don’t have to travel far to go to work. Not to mention security guards everywhere (to protect the residents from the masses?). It’s crazy.

By: Jeremy M. Barker

Jeremy M. Barker — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:11:19 +0000

The truth is, California has that effect on people especially, Americans too, which is maybe partly due to the fact that all our movies and t.v. shows are filmed there. But it’s crazy surreal–I was in L.A. a few months ago and stayed at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, which Fredric Jameson wrote about in Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism as the example par excellence of postmodern architecture, an entire hotel built to be a self-contained mini-city that separate you from the world outside (and all those pesky poor people). It’s totally weird to stay there, amongst other things because it’s impossible to get in (the external doors aren’t on the lobby level, and sometimes you have to take an elevator to one floor then use stairs to get to the floor you actually want), and there’s plaques everywhere saying what movies were filmed there.

By: Noelle De Guzman

Noelle De Guzman — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:38:42 +0000

Wuh. Deep. But I actually understood the Baudrillard stuff because I took it up in my master's studies, haha. Noelle De Guzmans last blog post..Travelscapes by Raymond Lauchengco