Simulacra/crum

Simulacra and Simulation is an idea by Jean Baudrillard that discusses the interaction between reality, symbols and society.

The defination is most known for its discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to the present day. Baudrillard claims that the modern day wrold and society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that we live in a simulation of reality rather than reality itself.

Baudrillard believes that the signs of culture and media create a perceived reality; leading to society to become so reliant on simulacra that it has lost contact with the real world on which the simulacra are based.

Television, film, print and the Internet, are said to be responsible for blurring the line between goods that are needed and goods for which a need is created by commercial images.

The Matrix makes many connections to Simulacra and Simulation. Simulacra and Simulation is the book in which Neo hides his illicit software. Morpheus also refers to the real world outside of the Matrix as the "desert of the real".

Bricolage

“Bricolage” is a French word that means putting something together out of available scraps of ideas etc to make a new piece of media art. It is related to pastiche..

' In his work, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society," Jameson writes that pastiche is "the imitation of a peculiar or unique style, the wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language" (16). He continues by describing those who work with bricolage:

"The writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds - they've already been invented; only a limited number of combinations are possible; the unique ones have been thought of already. ... This means that contemporary or postmodern art is going to be about art itself in a new kind of way; even more, it means that one of its essential messages will involve the necessary failure of art and the aesthetic, the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past" (18). '

Examples of bricolage are
Music often takes the form of sound collage, as well as sampling, DJs do this alot, mixing new and old songs, from all types of genres.


Film Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill relies heavily on styles, genres and codes from a variety of sources. He uses elements from Hong Kong kung-fu films, grindhouse style fight scenes and comic book set-ups.


Another film example is The Matrix by the Wachowski brothers, it visualually incorporates lots of different influences and styles into a new film. They draw on genres, stories and visuals such as the fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland, Japanese cyberpunk manga from Ghost in the Shell, action comic books, and kung-fu movies. Much of the discourse within the film refers to ,and combines, the ideas of Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, as well as lots of religious influences too.

Meme

A meme is an idea or creative item that is passed on virally from person to person to the point where lots of people know about it and are talking about. It's a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner similar to the biological transmission of genes when going through evolution. It can be explained in evolutionary principles when explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. For example memes develop through natural selection, similar to that of biolgical evolution. They go through variation, mutation and competition, through plenty of different people or texts.

Examples of memes include melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing fashion and most of all internet memes. Internet memes are often catchphrases or concepts that spread quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke.