Cooney's Commentary

Since I refer to Baudrillard a bit in my paper, I’ve revisiting the Simulcra and Simulation text from earlier this semester. One thing that really jumped out at me, was his discussion of the Lascaux caves. (Flusser mentions them somewhere too, I’ll see if I can find the reference – clearly they all just read each others work, and then go back and forth with their discourse!) Apparently people aren’t allowed in the real cave anymore, so “an exact replica was constructed 500 meters from it, so that everyone could see them (one glances through a peephole at the authentic cave and then one visits the reconstituted whole)….the duplication suffices to render both artificial” (Baudrillard, p. 9).

Earlier he states, “science itself as become pure simulation” (Baudrillard, p. 8). I wonder if part of the scientific problem is that they are trying essentially stop time – or stop the decay of organic beings. Nothing truly is meant to remain static – so although I thoroughly enjoy visits to the Franklin Institute, or other museums of Natural History, what we’re really seeing is “unnatural present”. This is however, one of the methods we use in our process of learning – if we can’t see, touch, its harder to comprehend what is in front of us. I’m not sure we can avoid it, or should want to.

P.S. I’m still amused that the Wachowski brothers included his book in the first Matrix movie. Back in ‘99 when I first saw the movie, I was not familiar with the title… and didn’t realize it was a real book.

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