threaten the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false’, between the ‘real’ and
the ‘imaginary’.
Baudrillard suggests that the ‘impossibility of rediscovering an absolute
level of reality unleashes the hopeless act of defining an illusion’
(Baudrillard, 1983: 38-39). In this sense, power today consists of investing in,
and reinventing, (un)reality; persuading society of the existence of certain
economical and social issues and (strategically) ignoring other matters. If
technology has facilitated the realization of imagination in an (un)reality of
bits, then the mediums and the ideas, informational material elements, are
the basic components of power. For Baudrillard, this explains why
‘contemporary production is Hyperreal in itself’ (Baudrillard, 2001a: 167):
This also means the collapse of reality into hyperrealism, in
the minute duplication of the real, preferably on the basis of
another reproduced medium - advertisement, photography,
etc. From medium to medium the real is volatilized; it
becomes an allegory of death, but it is reinforced by its very
destruction; it becomes the real for the real, fetish of the
last object - no longer object of representation, but ecstasy
of degeneration of its own extermination; the hyperreality
(Baudrillard, 1983: 141-142).
Taking the example of the events of 11th September 2001, Baudrillard
determines how the ‘technological image’ consumes the events, in the sense
that it absorbs and transforms it into an article of consumption. This kind of
terrorist violence is not real, but it can be defined as symbolic: it means
more than the events themselves (Baudrillard, 2001b: 2-3). There is a
resurgence of reality and its violence in a virtual environment. If reality
exceeds fiction, it is because it absorbs its energy and uses fictional sources.
Baudrillard’s work (1996) reveals a constant concern about the future
effects of technology on society and the individual. He proposes that, in the
short term, the possibilities offered by new technology produce a greater
variety of individuals, where each one creates their own identity. But
paradoxically, the absolute presence of technology has the potential danger
of rendering the representation empty, the consequence of inhabiting new
spaces without having a profound knowledge of the technology that produces
- 20 -