This is a practice-based course so we won’t be going into detail about the nature of truth,
hermeneutics, reality and hyperreality. What follows is a very brief summary. However you may
want to research some of these areas for yourself. You could start by looking at some of the titles
in the reading list at the end of this course guide.
We all feel that we’re aware of reality but what is ‘real’? If you live in a desert region perhaps
access to a tap with fresh clean water within five minutes walk is fantasy. This is not the world
of the suburb where everyone has several taps of their own. Therefore one person’s reality and
normality is not that of another. The freedom to travel is a reality for most of us, but not in
all countries. As a tourist it’s possible to travel from region to region in Cuba but for a Cuban
national it isn’t – unless you’ve got the correct paperwork. If we see a travel programme on
TV we see a reality for the tourist, for the paying visitor, a valued source of national income.
There may be many issues that are a reality of life in the countries we visit that we’re not aware
of and wouldn’t like if we were. This is not to say that there is a judgment to be made by us.
As a tourist with a completely different set of values that underpin your reality, how can you
make such a judgment? This is where the photographer living within a society must start to
consider the nature of the imagery that is produced. How will it portray the subject – in reality
or hyperreality?
Philosophers and critics talk about hyperreality where the human mind can’t distinguish reality
from a simulation of reality. Hyperreality is what our consciousness defines as ‘real’ in a situation
where media shape or filter an original event or experience. In other words, it’s ‘reality by proxy’.
As photographers we need to understand where we are with the images we produce in terms
of their reality. Is the image reality, a representation of reality or a simulation of reality? Jean
Photography 2 Gesture and Meaning 47
Baudrillard (1929–2007) was a French philosopher who addressed hyperreality and who talked
about the nature of reality in terms of simulacra and simulation.
The link below will take you to an interview that discusses simulacra and simulation. It talks
about the destabilisation of the media and our ability to identify what’s real and what’s not real.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=80osUvkFIzI
In a nutshell, simulation is the process whereby representations of things come to replace
the things being represented and indeed become more important than the real thing. At the
extreme, you end up with a simulacrum which has no relation to reality. So an image may:
• truly reflect of reality
• mask and pervert reality
• mask the absence of reality
• bear no relation to any reality – it is its own simulacrum.
We need to be careful to avoid simulation lest we engage with hyperreality as a reality without
recognising its values.
Jorge Louis Borges (1899–1986) in his work An Exactitude of Science (1946) describes
hyperreality as “a condition in which ‘reality’ has been replaced by simulacra.” Borges felt that
language had nothing to do with reality. Reality is a combination of perceptions, emotions,
facts, feeling, whereas language is a series of structured rules that we need to obey to help
others perceive our reality. The same is true of visual language.
Baudrillard argues that today we only experience prepared realities – edited war footage,
meaningless acts of terrorism, the Jerry Springer Show:
“The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give
an equivalent reproduction… The real is not only what can be reproduced,
but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal… which
is entirely in simulation. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no
longer possible.”
Baudrillard argues that we must attain an understanding of our state of perception and the
message content that is communicated in terms of the images we construct. Even if we see it as
a straight record of what we saw on the day, can this be a reality and, if so, for whom?
48 Photography 2 Gesture and Meaning
Documentary photographers are entering a new age with a new set of criteria. The issue of
technical quality is not relevant. Images from mobile phones that capture the ‘moment’ will
be printed by newspapers if the image tells the story. Where then is the need for a bag full of
cameras and kit? In a new age of photography the documentarist will need to engage with the
issue of hyperreality by establishing credibility, motivation and integrity. The reputation or name
is then the status giver, the endorser of reality and truth to the images produced and offered to
the media and the public.