In Simulacra and Simulation Jean Baudrillard gives a specific meaning of simulation - the generation of models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. Opposed to representation, simulacrum, stands on its own as a copy without reference. "Representation stems from the equivalence of the sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is Utopian, it is a fundamental axiom). Simulation, on the contrary, stems from the Utopia of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as a value, from the sign as the reversion and death sentence of every reference. Whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by interpreting it as a false representation, simulation envelopes the whole edifice of representation itself as a simulacrum." (p)
Baudrillard, 1994, p. 4
Images of the natural world are merged with artificil images in 'mixed realities', where it is often impossible to distinguish between original and simulacrum.
Grau, 2003, p.7
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