Hyperreal Histories
Added 2025-10-15 02:58:55 +0000 UTCSketching Travels in Hyperreality by Umberto Eco (https://amzn.to/46rtU8Z) in comparison with Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard (https://amzn.to/4h6fApS).
Comments
We fantasise about the Medievalism which actualises us, sharing icons of long dead hyperrealities (but they're still alive, animated empty suits of armour). An ever-intensifying fantasy universe sneaks through corridors of power like a conspiracy. In the dark ages you could go off-grid, and people were afraid of those from beyond it, because outside the grid was dark nature, disintegration. Today the things that eat us, that we should most fear and define ourselves against, prowl inside the grid.
Alex B
2025-10-22 19:25:37 +0000 UTCSounds like Eco would have liked Beauborg. From what I remember about Baudrillard the idea of the reversibility of history is really important. Going back to search for a lost referent like you say (like what Eco is saying?) But also he views the past itself as a vast territory teeming with signs to dig up and resurrect. The progress of history is going into the past to search for meaning, and we will keep going further and further back as we continue to not find it. I don't think JB would be very concerned about middle age signs vs ones from any other time or culture, as the laws of fashion determine what gets brought back more than psychological forces. Do you think Eco would agree with that version of reversibility?
Defanged Noumena
2025-10-21 20:21:27 +0000 UTC
