Reading Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation.
See where my confusion came from earlier as in this he does talk about the "successive phases of the image" in several stages - but my general understanding is sufficient I think. For me, for now. First representational copies. Then mass produced copies which raise questions about value, authenticity... then the construction of the artefact in its own right - not as a representation but as a thing. So raising questions as to what is in fact real, or true or authentic...
Nothing, any more , if Baudrillard is correct. Much of what he says ( about religion and religious iconography, about Disneyland) does make sense - so much of it is as obvious as the fact that all teenage girls create themselves in the image of the ideal that does not and cannot ever exist - and the only differences are those fabricated artificially...
But I do not agree that he is correct as there are still things that exist without being simulacra. Old ladies sitting in the sun. Children playing on the green. And there must even be teenage girls somewhere with unstraightened hair, imperfect skin, straggly eyelashes...)
All those things which exist outside and in spite of the mass communication that enmeshes so much of our lives.
He talks about the lost tribe being returned to their pre-discovered state and how they can never be returned. Like those in South America last year who were filmed looking up at the planes filming them. They are touched and changed but still exist in their own sphere. Why should they be changed just by our perceptions of what matters?
He also references Ishi - I did not know anyone else knew about Ishi. Ishi Last of His Tribe was a favourite childhood book which I re-read this year with my youngest child. I took issue with Baudrillard's suggestion that Ishi supports the notion that tribal cultures "refuse any 'unlimited' increase" as this was not part of the story that I knew. So - I googled Ishi - of course - and found that his story, life, brain, body, myth has indeed been appropriated, transformed and destroyed or replicated by just about everyone and that his life and death does indeed epitomise all that Baudrillard is discussing.
As regards the Mobious strip - I am sure there is the opportunity for some kinaesthetic learning there....
