International Journal of Research p-ISSN: 2348-6848 e-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 03 Issue 14 October2016

Hyperreality and the dominance of the image in White Noise Chung Chin-Yi National University of Singapore The pervasive culture of television Murray Siskind takes Jack Gladney to we watching is seen and we see that Babette see that signs and symbols have replaced tries to diminish its glamour by making it a reality and we are firmly in the realm of family affair. However television’s the simulacral where reality is effaced and influence is seen steadily throughout the we are left with hyperreality, mediated or novel, from the way Denise mutters ‘toyota augmented reality. celica’ in her sleep to the way the family experiences a numbness to disasters Reality television explodes the division because of their exposure to it on between the hyperreal and the real, but television. Along with the ‘most what it ultimately represents is the triumph photographed barn in America’ Murray of the hyperreal and the manufactured Siskind takes Jack Gladney to we see that image. As Derrida argues, it is an ‘artifactuality’ that is produced and made signs and symbols have replaced reality rather than a record.(Echographies of and we are firmly in the realm of the Television 41). It also serves to satisfy our simulacral where reality is effaced and we thirst for voyeurism, invasion of privacy are left with hyperreality, mediated or and as Baudrillard states, it increases our augmented reality. fascination with the obscene (Ecstasy of Keywords: Delillo, Hyperreality, Image, Communication 33). It is an exercise of ‘desiring to be seen’ and desiring the Other Television, Sign, Invasion to return our gaze, as we desire the mock celebrity that reality television affords. In witnessing the privation of its participants, That night, a Friday, we ordered Chinese we are also simultaneously celebrating our Food and watched television together, the comforts, so that there is a sadistic element six of us. Babette had made it a rule. She to taking pleasure in watching the seemed to think that if kids watched sufferings of others at work as well. In television one night a week with parents or coming across as ‘more real than real’ and stepparents, the effect would be to de- in our fascination with the hyperreal and glamorize the medium in their eyes, make manufactured image, Baudrillard’s it wholesome domestic sport. (4.18) statement that we no longer watch television and it is television that watches The pervasive culture of television us seems remarkably prophetic in the surge watching is thus seen in the above quote and success of reality television and we see that Babette tries to diminish programmes (Ecstasy 31). Reality its glamour by making it a family affair. television appeals because of its ‘live’ However television’s influence is seen element, its telepresence, and in Derrida’s terms, the space it allows for the ‘arrival’ steadily throughout the novel, from the of an event, whose expectation is made of way Denise mutters ‘toyota celica’ in her a ‘nonexpectation,’ in so doing it offers a sleep to the way the family experiences a certain variety, diversity and spontaneity numbness to disasters because of their that we cannot find in scripted television exposure to it on television. Along with programmes. Derrida also argues for a the ‘most photographed barn in America’ ‘messianism’ that guides the event, the

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 4930 International Journal of Research p-ISSN: 2348-6848 e-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 03 Issue 14 October2016 promise of futurity, hence perhaps it is the home are destroyed. Reality is open-ness and heightened anticipation that ‘minituarized’- television replaces our we take pleasure in (Echographies of desire for human relationships or ideals Television 13). There is also an element of and renders organic and real bodies and ‘testimony’ and truth to live television events superfluous (Ecstasy 14). The which separates it from scripted obscene fascinates us, and replaces the programmes. As it happens only once in organic with the machinic. In this regard, live real time there is a precious singularity advertising also becomes an omnipresent and uniqueness to the moment. Derrida reality – materializes its ‘obscenity’- once again explains that it captures the monopolizes public life with its exhibition. irreplaceable present and bears witness to This is also precisely what reality the fact that “this was there” (Echographis television shows are: Simulations and the of Television 94). One might also argue triumph of the hyperreal and mediated that the addressee enjoys its status of reality. ‘being addressed’ in reality television, thus enabling the addressee to participate in The most intimate processes of our lives production of meaning as the confessional become feeding grounds for the media (the scenes in reality as well as reporting in Louds on television – a family which was broadcast programmes are directed put under camera surveillance-also might towards engaging the audience in a being draw a parallel to the current phenomenon ‘participants’ of an event. There exists an of reality TV shows such as Big Brother, ineluctable ‘reality effect’ when the Survivor, Temptation Island, The Bachelor specters on television seem to be watching and so on). All aspects of life are us (Derrida 123). permeated and infiltrated by the media, subjecting everything to visibility, In the Ecstasy of Communication, exposing everything to the inexorable light Baudrillard once again reminds us that of communication. In Baudrillard’s terms with the advent of television, as in we live in the “ecstasy of communication”, hyperreality, the subject-object distinction which is obscene because it renders the collapses and we are immersed in its private exposed, a pornography of reality – “television becomes a control information and communication. screen” (13). He uses the metaphor of driving to relate our relation to television- It is the obscenity of the hidden that is no longer controllers of a device, we are suddenly overexposed and visible. In this now subjected to its control, we become a dissolution of the exterior and the interior, “computer at the wheel”, not a “drunken Baudrillard likens the contemporary demiurge of power” (13). He argues that subject to the schizophrenic – who cannot television creates a space of hyperreality distinguish between inner and outer and is that overtakes reality and hence displaces subject to all the vagaries of the external metaphysics. Our subjectivities are world (Ecstasy of Communication 14). dissolved- we are no longer ‘subjects of The subject’s sense of individuality and interiority” (13) in control of television but distinction from external objects is subjected to the controls of multiple dissolved. He/she becomes obscene, as is network satellites. Television becomes an the world. The subject is total prey of intrusive actor in our domestic space- that hyperreality, a pure screen, a switching overtakes our lives from work, center for all networks of influence. For consumption, play, social relations and Baudrillard, both the body and the ‘self’ leisure. Baudrillard further explains that (both conform to images) can be divided the hyperreal displaces the real and renders and commodified, as governed by the it useless. Social relationships within the capitalist/advertising code (Ecstasy 42). To

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 4931 International Journal of Research p-ISSN: 2348-6848 e-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 03 Issue 14 October2016 see the ‘self’ as a technology possessed by "It's raining now," I said. the mediascape, as Baudrillard does, is to become schizophrenic. Baudrillard’s "The radio said tonight." (6.3-6.5) subject is therefore, completely de-centred and dominated by the image. Again we are faced with the situation that mediated reality or hyperreality has Once you've seen the signs about the barn, replaced reality. Everybody believes it will it becomes impossible to see the barn." rain because the radio said so and this (3.19) reality has replaced the reality of physical rain. Again we see the reign of hyperreality the barn is replaced by its image, by the "Just because it's on the radio doesn't mean souvenirs and photographs that surround we have to suspend belief in the evidence it, by the images that mediate it. Delillo of our senses." (6.9) thus argues hyperreality has replaced reality and we are firmly in the grip of Jack rebuts hyperreality and says what hyperreality or augmented reality. needs to be said about the invasion of our lives by the media. Physical reality has We're not here to capture an image, we're been replaced by hyperreality or here to maintain one. Every photograph augmented reality and the television and reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? radio are constant interjections and An accumulation of nameless energies." dominators in the lives of the Gladneys. (3.21) "Is there such a thing as now? "Now" Walter Benjamin argued that photography comes and goes as soon as you say it. How reproduced the aura of a subject, its can I say it's raining now if your so-called specificity in space and time. It "now" becomes "then" as soon as I say it?" essentializes the barn and perpetuates this (6.22). specific space time image of the barn through replications. However it destroys Heinrich cunningly says now becomes the reality of the barn and replaces it with then as soon as you say it, in Derrida this an image. is the trace, the mediated difference with a repetition that the sign produces, once "I am the false character that follows the something is said, it is repeated with a name around." (4.23) difference and becomes an image of what was originally said. Jack Gladney admits he is a fiction. He pioneered Hitler studies and dons "You see the sun moving across the sky. sunglasses while using his initials J.A.K to But is the sun moving across the sky or is perpetuate an image of a dangerous Hitler the earth turning?" (6.32) scholar indestructible and unafraid of mortality when the reality is he is Heinrich thus points out the importance of profoundly afraid of death and mortality so personal perspective colouring perception. much so he will shoot Babette’s lover at The sun looks like it is moving across the the novels end to gain ‘life-credit’ for sky but it is truly the earth spinning creating that optic illusion of the sun himself. moving. Again we see mediated reality "It's going to rain tonight." triumphs.

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But this evacuation isn't simulated. It's We must learn to discriminate, compose, real." paste and edit images to gain mastery over them. This is a skill which must be "We know that. But we thought we could developed within and without schools. For use it as a model." Derrida this involves developing a new relation to the politics of memory. Derrida "A form of practice? Are you saying you contends that any politics of memory saw a chance to use the real event in order would imply the intervention of the state – to rehearse the simulation?" (21.396) a state that legislates and acts with regard to nonfinite material to be stored (59). Simulation thus becomes reality as the While today we can almost claim to SIMUVAC staff use a real event to archive everything, Derrida wonders if it is rehearse a simulation. We thus see no ultimately the state that decides what is difference between simulation and reality worthy of preservation, and will always and are firmly in the realm of the privilege the national and the public. If we simulacral. were to delegate this responsibility of the politics of memory to a state institution, "There must always be believers. Fools, then it will be a minority or a fraction of idiots, those who hear voices, those who the nation rather than “integral” or speak in tongues. We are your lunatics. “general will” that preserves this memory. We surrender our lives to make your Although Derrida says that a politics of nonbelief possible. You are sure you are memory might exist, he also emphasizes right but you don't want everyone to think that it is nevertheless necessary to educate as you do." (40.150) citizens, subjects, or televisual audiences to be vigilant with regard to the politics of Atheists thus need believers paradoxically memory: to be alert that it was a particular to pit their non belief against to make a politics, as well as essentially a politics. sport of believers. Jack is shocked to find One must simultaneously practice and be that the nuns do not believe in God. The critical of a politics of memory nuns maintain they are there to maintain (Echographies of Television 63). In the illusion of belief. Again, we find Derrida’s view this means developing an simulacral belief. awareness of selectivity (63). Derrida argues that this awareness will never be a Someone turned on the TV set at the end spectatorial critique, or a theoretical of the hall, and a woman's voice said: "If it vigilance. To politicize these technical breaks easily into pieces, it is called shale. events alternatively and to democratize When wet, it smells like clay." (7.28) them, one must also be wary of politicization. Here, Derrida’s reading of The omnipresence of television is thus developing a critical stance towards a seen in the above quote. We find we politics of memory proves to be cannot escape hyperreality because immensely liberating in light of television and radio is everywhere in the Baudrillard and Virilio’s pessimistic novel and replaced objective reality. assessments of the potential for agency with regards to television. This is the most According to Derrida, we are in a state of optimistic reading of the three, developing quasi-illiteracy with respect to the image. a meta-awareness of a politics of memory in order to politicize it alternatively.

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Works cited: Baudrillard, Jean. The Ecstasy of Communication. Semiotext, New York, 1988. Delillo, Don. White Noise. Viking Penguin, New York, 1984. Derrida, Jacques. Echographies of television. Malden, Mass. : Polity Press, 2002.

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