Simulacrum
A simulacrum is a Latin word originally meaning a material object representing something (such as an idol representing a deity, or a painted still-life of a bowl of fruit). By the 1800s it developed a sense of a "mere" image, an empty form devoid of spirit, and descended to a specious or fallow representation.
In the book Simulacrum and Simulation (199x), the French social theorist Jean Baudrillard gave the term a specific meaning in the context of semiotics, extended from its common one: a copy of a copy which has been so dissipated in its relation to the original that it can no longer be said to be a copy. The simulacrum, therefore, stands on its own as a copy without a model. For example, the cartoon Betty Boop was based on singer Helen Kane. Kane, however, rose to fame imitating Annette Hanshaw. Hanshaw and Kane have fallen into relative obscurity, while Betty Boop remains an icon of the flapper.
Fredric Jameson uses the example of photorealism to describe simulacrum. The painting is a copy of a photograph, not of reality. The photograph itself is a copy of the original. Therefore, the painting is a copy of a copy. Other art forms that play with simulacrum include Pop Art, Trompe l'oeil, Italian neo-Realism and the French New Wave. Jean Baudrillard puts forth God as an example.
Another usage specific to fantasy and science fiction is in reference to an artificial creature or android that is specifically intended to impersonate another creature (usually a human being).
One is depicted in the film Blade Runner, in which the villains are replicants, or androids built in imitation of humans, who are legally banned from the Earth. They return to Earth in search of their creator, in hopes of having their pre-programmed termination undone, that they may live as normal humans. One of the replicants meets the engineer who designed his artificial eyes and says to him, "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes." In the case of Blade Runner, however, the replicants are not copies of actual humans - all of whom, in the film, have some physical defect - but of idealized, perfect versions of humans. Therefore, the replicants are imitations not of reality but of another imitation - ergo, they are simulacra.
Simulacra in art
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