LESSON 11

ADVERTISING AND SUBVERTISING

STATEMENT ADVERTISING

LIMITS SUBVERTISING
 ‘Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a
substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality:
a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it.
It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory – precession of
simulacra – that engenders the territory‘. (Baudrillard, 1981: 1).
It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It
is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real‘. (1981:. 2)

Modern (postmodern?) culture is not artificial – we do not live in a

computer game – but we have lost the ability to decide what is real.
What is natural, the real world, and what is artificial.

1. Media. Television, film, magazines, the Internet are all

concerned not just with relaying information but also with
interpreting things for us – including our selves. We tend to
approach life first through these media images, rather than
address life directly, ourselves, first.
2. Capitalism. Baudrillard suggest that it is capital that defines our
identities, with multinational companies no longer defining national
identity. We have lost touch with labour. The people who make our
products and services are invisible. In hyperreality, we, as
consumers of goods and services, have come to accept
exaggerations as determining what is real. It is part of our belief
system, for example, in accepting a manufacturer’s promise.

Manufacturers exploit this tendency in their advertising, underpinning

the capitalist system. Can any of us identify coffee plants? Yet,
Starbucks populates and to some extent defines our global, urban
reality. The concept of ‘Free Trade Coffee’ is better known than the
actual process of coffee production.

 3.Exchange-Value. Karl Marx wrote that we consider everything in

terms of what it is worth, rather than its value to us. In other words, we
define things as to what they can be exchanged for. Marx defined
exchange-value as the labour/power necessary to create something,
rather than the thing itself. Money allows us to measure everything in
our lives – and, again, we have lost sight of the real value of labour. Life
is all about capital, not about actual value, and that is a simulacrum,
according to Baudrillard.
4.Urbanization. We are losing (have lost?) touch with the natural
world. Often natural spaces are ‘protected’, reserved, fenced off. The
sign ‘nature’ (e.g. Natural Park) precedes our actual relationship with
the reality of the natural world.
5. Language. Baudrillard shows that in both obvious and subtle ways,
language stops us from accessing reality.

 it is the reflection of a profound reality;

it masks and denatures a profound reality;

it masks the absence of a profound reality;

it has no relation to any reality whatsoever;

it is its own pure simulacrum.‘ Baudrillard, (1981:

4).