simulacra

A film inspired by the French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard and his book Simulacra & Simulation. A man tries to escape his ordinary monotonous life. In a world of conformity, originality is always at risk of being copied.
(I found this movie collecting dust from my film school days. This film was wrote, shot, and edited in two weeks in Fall 2003)

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• simulacra
• conformity
• Short
• Film
• Social
• Satire
• USC
• School
• University
• of
• Southern
• California

[tonyfalca]

Great illustration! that was funny when the other buddy showed up wearing the same thing :)

[avoidingstudy]

@orin009 is xerox a photocopier? you sound like you've read Baudrillard, could you tell me if a simulacra is one copy (without an original) and simulacrum are many- that then create the hyperreal...? is this close

[Sativa7Art]

great film

[orin009]

and how at the very end, he keeps making more and more copies, the cycle repeats and multiplies over and over until it blurs out into nothingness. Much like the analogy with the xerox machine.

Its a very clever short film! ^__^

[orin009]

Contemporary media (television, film, magazines, billboards, the Internet) keep us at one step removed from the reality of our bodies or of the world around us. An today sense this media and reality are almost one and the same, Life becomes just as dull as the photo copies in this film. NOTICE HOW:The characters tie becomes dull when ever he makes a xerox, how the copy of the character throws out the photo copy, and how in the end, The character is tired of life, frustrated, in a rut.

[orin009]

Its like this. Imagine placing an original document into a xerox machine. The xerox will come close to the original, but it will never be as genuine. You will be able to tell that a machine rendered it. Now take that photo copy and xerox it again. The Document will be duller than the first copy. Keep doing that over and over and you'll end up with a dull, meaningless simulation. An empty and void reality. The original purpose for the xerox is lost in an exponential cycle of mimicry.

[orin009]

Simulacra happens when there are too many symbols to represent (simulate) a specific idea so much that the simulation (in this case, photo copy) comes to replace the original.This happens alot in america because we are so caught up with entertainment and Media(which serve to mimic life for but our enjoyment).This is why reality and life in America is so dull because our reality is always a copy of something from life, so much that we forget the origin of what our Media imitates.

[JeanEmar3]

Andy Warhol again....mmmm

[TheArcaneMaster]

cute. =)

[TheArcaneMaster]

Read Simulations and Simulacra, upon which the imagery in this short is based, and you'll understand it better. Or possibly read a primer on postmodernism that contains a summary of Baudrillard's ideas.