Visualizing the Past: Baudrillard, Intensities of the Hyper-real and the Erosion of Historicity

This chapter aims to bring specicity to the links between the hyper-real and visualizations of the past. Theoretically, it draws on the work of Jean Baudrillard, particularly his exploration of the consequences of the proliferation of transmitted information. Here, he argues, technological change has created a world sated with informational messages, in which everyday life is increasingly lived through mediated images. These images sometimes faithfully represent the real; but commonly, to attract attention, engage and entertain, they simulate the real in varying levels of intensity. The result is beyond real: it is a hyper-real. While this term has had a tendency to be deployed rather loosely, in this chapter I show that Baudrillard’s writings, admittedly opaque, offer a model by which the hyper-real can be understood in specic contexts. For example, by applying the model to particular cases in the elds of cinematic lm and heritage interpretation, different intensities of the hyperreal can be diagnosed; and as shall be seen, historicity is compromised.