Simulacra and Simulation-Part I

In Baudrillard’s book, he discussed the images, signs system, and symbolic meaning in today’s society. He argued that “simulations in no longer that a territory of referential being or a substance, and it is the generation by models of a real without an origin or reality, a hyperreal” (p.1). Baudrillard employed the idea of simulacra to refer that electric media and signs system can create the perceived reality and that makes people to believe an identifiable reality exists. He claimed that “present-day simulators attempt to make the real all of the real coincide with their models of simulation” and “it is a hyperreal produced from a radiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere” (p.2) . Baudrillard also asserted that “pretending or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intake, and simulation threaten the difference between the true and false, the real and the imaginary” (p.3).

Baudrillard discussed four kinds of simulacrum, “1) it is the reflection of a profound reality; the image is a good appearance”; “2) it masks the denatures a profound reality; the image is an evil appearance”; 3)”it masks absence of a profound reality; image plays at being an appearance”; 4)” it has no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is not longer of the order of appearances but of simulation” (p.6). There is not a clear distinction between the reality and representation. In Baudrillard’s book, he used Disneyland which is an ideal model of all orders of simulacrum as an example to discuss hyperreal and imaginary. Baudrillard claimed that Disneyland is presented as imaginary to create a false reality and make it for people to believe this reality. False reality in Disneyland enables visitors to satisfy their imagination and daydream fantasies in real life and simulated imaginary allow people to visit out space without leaving the earth. It does not matter whether the fantasies in Disneyland are real or false, since there is no original that can be used to compare. The question raised is that how authentic is the simulated experience compared with the natural or original activity?

In travel and tourism, we also talk about the authenticity of the trip experiences. International travel provides people the opportunities of interacting with different cultural backgrounds for local residents. Looking for experience and authenticity is an important motivation for traveling. The authenticity of the tourism products such as works of art, traditional events and dress, depends on whether they are made or enacted by local people according to custom or tradition. When people travel to a destination, they want to explore the heritage site, and historical monuments to experience the social culture of host destination. Accompany with the commercialization of tourism services, tourism business began to alter local culture and customs to satisfy tourists’ expectations. For example, the local residents perform the traditional dance in a stage to visitors that can experience the social culture of host regions. The staged performance of traditional customs in the tourist destination is not always authentic to the original customs which refer to staged authenticity. However, from the postmodernism point of view, tourists do not concern about the authentic travel experiences since there is not real or fake.