ABSTRACT
For centuries philosophers have questioned the relationship between reality and representation. Only with the emergence of augmented reality, however, has the problem of so-called hyperreality and its effects emerged as a key theme in contemporary theory. Generally understood as an inability to differentiate between real objects or events, (or imitations or fabrications of the real), scholars have been unable to agree on a definition of the term. Baudrillard’s definition is by far the most complex and nuanced, incorporating a clear reference to the autonomy acquired by representation in the modern world and emphasizing aspects of hyperreality barely addressed by others. Baudrillard’s principal case study, Disneyland, is acknowledged in Chapter 5 as a larger-than-life, fantasized microcosm whose totalizing ambience is revealed as the ‘generation by models of a real without origin or reality’. Baudrillard’s theory is assessed against those of Plato, Umberto Eco and Guy Debord, while his case study is compared to a similar study on Disneyland by Mark Gottdiener. Disneyland’s Main Street and fake nature provide the background for a 360-degree grasp of Baudrillard’s concept of simulation as explained via the pictorial technique of trompe l’oeil. Hyperreality acquires here the meaning of diffused ambience.
