Jean Baudrillard: Simulations (Part 1)
Over and above the last post, the aim here is to start outlining the ideas of Baudrillard’s relating to Simulation that would up in The Invisibles. Hopefully, when I get around to actually writing this part, I can just C+P this post, flesh it out a little, and then it’ll be done.
PHASES OF THE IMAGE
-it is the reflection of a basic reality
-it masks and perverts a basic reality
-it masks the absence of a basic reality (italics his)
-it bears no relation to any reality (Baudrillard 11).
The narrative of the Invisibles is heavily couched in the kind of pop simulation that was later incorporated into The Matrix. For that reason a cursory comparison of the two works may be helpful.
The Matrix (hopefully I will have already explained at this point the “borrowed” elements of Morrison that ended up in the film) presents the computer-reality as an image of the second phase, literally masking an essential reality which was superficially dissimilar to the virtual. The virtual world and the real exist in a kind of chiasmic relationship in which the social roles of machines and humans are situated in opposing orientations. Some other criteria of Baudrillard’s are fulfilled within the story (the opposition of binaries, the infinite reproducibility of signs, etc.) but by and large the film’s relationship to the theory is one-dimensional, and in my opinion uses the idea of simulation primarily as a means to the end of creating a cinematic space wherein various heroes can employ superhuman powers.
In contrast, The Invisibles seems invested in creating a dialogic relationship between itself and Baudrillard’s text. Like the Matrix it explores the idea of the whole of perceived reality as a simulation, but that simulation exists not in the second but in the third phase of Baudrillard’s hierarchy, crossing his “decisive turning point” from “signs which dissimulate that there is something, to signs that simulate that there is nothing” (Baudrillard 12). This simulation is occurring on several levels; I will examine them here in order of simplest to most complex.
First and foremost, it is repeatedly implied that the whole of the narrative as represented in the visuals and the text is an interactive game of sorts being “played” by an unseen person or entity, possibly Dane as he sits on Gideon’s couch in 3.1. It is unclear what position the Real would take in this scenario- either it is only the environment presented in 3.1, or it is anything else. Needless to say, this is somewhat unsatisfying. The “game” aspect of simulation is probably the least interesting and least developed within the text.
At other points, it is implied that the entirety of the narrative is being authored by a college-age Ragged Robin as she sits in an authorship tank at Berkeley, as we see on page 3.1.11.
Besides providing an uncannily prescient view of teenage social politics in 2005 (“Kerry says she’s in love with a straight-edger boy”), it negotiates several orders of simulation simultaneously. The individual floating in the tank in panel 1 appears as she does in panel 2 within the virtual software space of the tank, a spatial simulation which echoes that present in The Matrix (in that the real and virtual spaces are represented as three-dimensional, the real can concretely be designated as the real, the spaces are visually distinct, etc.). However it is implied that the book Robin is authoring is the text of the Invisibles itself; on 2.20.9 her actions while in the tank alter the flow of the main narrative itself, retroactively preventing Jolly Roger from being shot while escaping the Dulce facility. In panel 3, we see Dane playing the game mentioned above. Further down, the use of the Invisibles logo as the frame for panel 4 calls attention to the parallel structure existing between Kay’s authored text and the text actually being read, the physical comic book itself.
This effect serves to obscure the real within the simulation structure and moves the narrative from the second stage of the image to the third. AT THIS POINT I WILL EXPLAIN HOW THE IMAGE REDEFINES THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE SIMULATED TO THE REAL. I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO DO THIS YET. I WANT TO MAKE THE POINT THAT MORRISON IS RENEGOTIATING THE BOUNDARIES SET FORWARD BY BAUDRILLARD; THE REAL IS STILL EXTANT AND IMPORTANT BUT IS UNKNOWABLE UNTIL THE SUPERCONTEXT. THIS HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE GRAPHIC NATURE OF THE WORK.
Citation:
Jean Baudrillard. Simulations. Semiotext(e), Inc., 1983.
Page 2.20.9
