Our modern society is obsessed with the image in many different ways. The more our technology has progressed, the more we have found ways in which to create images in ways that are indiscernible from reality. Special effects in movies are defining the way that we view cinema, and televisions are built in such a way as to diminish the obviousness of watching an image on a screen. In other words, they are hoping to appear indecipherable from reality. The perfection of the image to some might be seen by some to be indicative of our progress, though there obviously are other ways to view this tendency.
[...] Baudrillard considers the cinema in specific to the loss of illusion in art. It used to be that claymation skeletons would arise from the grave to attack the hero. Upon viewing this kind of special effect, the audience was fully aware that this was simply a trick of the camera. At not point in viewing this did a person think that this did or could actually happen. The image on the screen removed the viewer from reality, and because the viewer was removed from reality, the viewer was able to imbue this image with greater meaning and significance. [...]
[...] In reference to works of art, Baudrillard discusses the terms illusion and image. To Baudrillard, the reason an image is powerful is because, when viewing it, we are aware that it is an image and not reality: closer to reality an image is, the less powerful it becomes”[1]. This is because, in part, we are able to give a piece of art our own meaning. Though we are reliant upon words to describe to ourselves how we view the meaning of an image, we still aren't reliant upon other people to develop our own thoughts on the meaning of an image. [...]
[...] Baudrillard was concerned that our modern society tries to hard to understand reality, and because we can only know reality through these webs of meaning, we cannot actually come to understand reality fully, and any thinking that we have come to a better understanding of reality is false and forces us into a simulated version of reality. As mentioned, the way we understand words, and by extension reality is through these webs of meaning. The question then, of course, is to then attempt to describe how we attempt to understand artistic endeavors, which are in different way webs of meaning that people make. [...]
[...] On the other hand, images represent reality, and we are not, or at least should not, attempt to define reality through images. Images serve a different purpose, and while words that are simply attempting to define reality cannot fully do so, words can be used to create a representation of reality. The purpose of these words are not to create a representation that will define reality, and we need to keep in mind that . What in essence we are attempting to do is to create something that is a part of reality, yet it is clearly differentiating itself from reality because of it lacks the total dimensions that an object in reality would contain. [...]
[...] Baudrillard deplored the tendency to erase the lines between image and reality. He did not view more realistic viewing as better viewing: “We're going more and more toward the direction of high definition, that is to say, towards the useless perfection of the image—which is no longer an image”[4]. It is interesting to consider how the newest TV and home movie viewing technology is referred to as high definition. There is a stronger and stronger emphasis on attempting to make what we see on our television screens to be indiscernible from our actual reality. [...]
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