Baudrillard – Simulacra and Simulation (1981/1994)

Baudrillard begins by suggesting the impossibility of Borges’s exhaustive
map, a precise cartography of the empire.  According to Baudrillard, such a
map is no longer possible; the farcical project is rendered impossible because
of "the precession of simulacra," which we might take as an onslaught of
images without immediate reference or "copies without originals."  If images
are referential, simulacra shroud the reference, resulting in what Baudrillard
calls the hyperreal as well as conditions giving rise to "the era of
simulation [which] is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials" (2). 
Hereafter, maps precede territory (1); this applies to the medicalization of the
body and anticipations of war-action as the trainings for each are staged
through elaborate and artificial simulations.  Also, Baudrillard works this
theory on Disneyland, Watergate and God.

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