In contemporary capitalist society, matters have been replaced
with symbols, while reality is substituted with copies or images of
reality, simulacra. Now that the relationship between reality and
reproduction has been reversed and simulacra, which have been
freed from the subject or the original to take after, now produce
a hyper-reality, this seems to be more like reality. Now there is no
original copy and, in a sense, there is no differentiation between
the original and the copy.
The simulacra lead and guide our sense of order, based on an
increase in information and media. The things that rule people’s
perception of an object in contemporary capitalist production,
where one ‘code’ could make numerous copies, are the
information and media surrounding this object. Absorbing all kinds
of information and media, the contemporary mass acts as sponges
or black holes that are insensitive to the inherent meaning of
these objects.
Can the qualitative aspects of objects, neutralised by the violent
nature of capitalism, break the ‘code’ (meaning uniformity) and
increase their ideal beauty again? Ideal beauty may be felt when
we give up uniform outlines and identical contours of the world
and look at the world as if we were seeing it for the first time. The
world should not be appreciated as if it already existed and we
only just opened our eyes. Rather, it exists through me when I
open my eyes and appreciate it. Objects that can be recognized
are not simply being recognized time and again. Rather, the
structure of our objects could reflect the moments when we were
just born and experienced the world for the first time. But, are we
capable of pure recognition when we have grown accustomed to
looking at objects limited by conventional cognizance in a world
where everything has become uniform?
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