Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal

EJPC 7 (1) pp. 39–56 Intellect Limited 2016 Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication Volume 7 Number 1 © 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ejpc.7.1.39_1 HANIA A. M. NASHEF American University of Sharjah Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Jean Baudrillard sees in today’s simulation the model ‘of a real but without origin or reality: a hyperreal’. With the hyperreal, the individual is unable to distinguish what is real and what is not. In this article, I argue how the pervasiveness of media, in the form of mobile phones, tablets with their applications and social networking sites, singularly or in unison create and sustain the existence of the hyperreal. They succeed at once through an imagined call for urgency and an implosion of meaning that cannot be contained. This type of media is a priori a form of simulation, and has not only erased the boundaries that exit between the real and the unreal but has also developed as a site accountable for continual deference of the being-in-theworld, forcing on the latter a perpetual existence in the hyperreal. hyperreal Simulacra and Simulation media mobiles tablets virtual reality INTRODUCTION In Benjamin Jowett’s introduction to Plato’s ‘The Sophist’, he explains how according to Plato there are two kinds of image: ‘the art of making likenesses’ and ‘the art of making appearances’ (Plato 1931: 306). ‘The art of making appearances’ is sometimes illustrated by sculpture and painting; the latter 39 Hania A. M. Nashef often rely on illusions and invariably alter the proportions of the figures in order to adapt and make their work pleasing to the eye. In Plato’s discussion of the Sophist, he asserts that the Sophist likewise uses illusions but his imitations are mere appearances and never real; the Sophist essentially tries to assert the non-being. As non-being can never be attributed to a being or a number, which according to Plato is the most real of all things, it will never be real and thus any representation of it will be consequently unreal. The unreal resides in falsehood and in the non-being. Jean Baudrillard, a French philosopher and cultural analyst, has partly built his media theory on Plato’s concept of the unreal image, the simulacrum, which being an imitation can never be real. Although the French philosopher’s theory predated the current technologies, it remains relevant to a discussion of the current media, especially within the context of the multiplication of signs through media production, which is more invasive and has the capability of erasing meaning. In his study, Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard begins by a discussion of Borges’ fable in which ‘the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly’ (2004: 1). This map evolves to become the ‘most beautiful allegory of simulation’; the territory no longer precedes the map; instead, it is ‘the map that precedes the territory’ (Baudrillard 2004: 1). If one needs to go back to the territory, it is the map that one returns to and not the actual territory; the fragments that remain are the new real; the rotten shreds become the real, and this is the reality we now perceive as ours (Baudrillard 2004: 1). In the process of the map becoming the real, something is lost; the original, and here Baudrillard is referring to the cartographers’ project disappears with this process of simulation. The unreal ensues from fragments and ‘is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, memory banks, models of control’, which can be reproduced an ‘indefinite number of times’ (2004: 2). Rational cannot be exercised, as it cannot be measured against ‘either an ideal or negative instance’ (Baudrillard 2004: 2). It evolves into the hyperreal, which is protected from the imaginary and from the distinction that exists between it and the real. The hyperreal is when the individual fails to distinguish the real from fantasy. Furthermore, the process of simulation is in itself difficult to isolate ‘through the force of inertia of the real’; the opposite also holds true, again due to the ‘impotence of power’, resulting in our inability to ‘isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real’ (Baudrillard 2004: 21, original emphasis). In this article, I propose to study how the pervasiveness of certain media types, in themselves a form of simulation, has not only erased the boundaries that exit between the real and the simulation of that real but also has developed as a site accountable for continual différance of the physical being-in-the-world, of transporting virtual selves that can only exist in the hyperreal. CLOUDING THE BOUNDARIES The word ‘real’ is often associated with what is authentic, genuine, sincere, relating to something that is fixed and, OED adds, ‘not ostensible or assumed’, and in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is ‘not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory’. The antithesis of the term suggests qualities that are fake, insincere, shifting, illusory or even fraudulent, which connote the negative, immoral and unreliable. Simulation, which involves a form of mimicry, falls within the domain of the hyperreal. In binary representations, one thing is always pitted against another; and in turn, it denotes a higher moral ground. So in the very 40 Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal definition of the real resides its superiority; in its opposite exists the inferior and the suspect. According to Baudrillard, simulation is ‘to feign what one doesn’t have’ (2004: 3). A presence is implied, and in this presence resides the threat. With simulation, the difference between ‘true’ and the ‘false’, the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ is continually threatened (Baudrillard 2004: 3). The interactivity of new media allows for this process and more importantly is the simulator for the blurring of the boundaries. The multimedia platforms have paved the way for the unreal and the hyperreal to coexist. Where once certain lines, albeit at times debated and broadly defined, separated the real from the unreal, the rational from the irrational, the easiness of media production and consumption have successfully erased this separation through overlapping boundaries. With this type of media came an explosion and an ‘implosion of meaning’, paving the way for simulation to begin (Baudrillard 2004: 79). These outbursts of information and their evasiveness have put pressure on the individual leading to a collapse at the centre of being. Computers, smart phones and tablets have served as the conduit for crossing into the ‘space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth’; moreover, they have become, a priori, the realm of simulation, successfully liquidating all referentiality through their ‘artificial resurrection in the systems of signs’ (Baudrillard 2004: 2). New media have assisted in the transportation of the individual from what has once been perceived as concrete/real and physically anchored into the virtual and the hyperreal. John Tiffin states in ‘the popular image, virtual reality is a technology that provides computer-generated realities that are an alternative to physical reality’ (Tiffin and Terashima 2001: 24). On the other hand, Michael Heim defines virtual reality as ‘an event or entity that is real in effect but not in fact’ (1993: 107). What virtual reality actually promises is a reality that excludes and supersedes the real world by virtue of how it is experienced. In addition, you experience the virtual through the hyper; it evolves into the medium through which the real and the virtual interact. Tiffin adds: Hyperreality is a development in a different direction. It seeks to make virtual reality something that is experienced as part of physical reality, so that virtual and real phenomena appear to interact with each other. HR is VR as well as, not instead of, PR […] In HR, however, the research trend is towards providing HyperWorlds where the commingling of what is virtual and what is real is seamless and so appears natural. (Tiffin and Terashima 2001: 31, original emphasis) The commingling or the blurring of both worlds diminishes the individual’s ability to distinguish not only what is real from what is false but also lessens the person’s capability of judging what is more important. The hyperreal becomes the more urgent world and worthy of attention. It is the place in which virtual selves can be continually created and deferred. Jacques Derrida writes ‘différance […] does not exist, is not a present-being (on) in any form; and we will be led to delineate also everything that it is not, that is, everything; and consequently that it has neither existence nor essence’ (1982: 6, original emphasis). The lack of concrete existence stems from the fact that the self in the hyperreal cannot be grasped as it is repeatedly being created and as with the sign acquires meaning through its referential power between the various selves. 41 Hania A. M. Nashef 1. A total of 60 junior, sophomore and senior students were asked a few questions relating to their use of mobile phones, tablets and Social Networking Sites (SNS), during and outside of lectures. 42 Smart devices Interactivity, production and consumption of messages, posts or e-mails via the smart devices are the sites on which the mingling of real, virtual and hyperreal occurs. This simulation of the real has become the more real, the hyperreal, with its own pressing demands. Not only has it forced its presence through its ubiquitous capabilities but also through the demands it has imposed through its interactivity. When a mobile phone rings, a WhatsApp, Snapchat or a Tweet flashes, the person feels obligated to check. To aid my argument I conducted a small survey at the university I am currently at, randomly selecting a sample of undergraduate students, to understand this persistent need, although the phenomenon itself is not confined to student behaviour (the results of the survey is in the appendix at the end of the document).1 In spite of repeatedly being told not to answer their phones, send instant messages or check social media during lectures, the students whom I and some other professors have encountered in our classrooms continuously feel the urge to check their smart phones or tablets. The short survey also confirmed that this behaviour is not confined to the classroom. I have also observed how engrossed the students are with their various devices, be it mobiles, tablets and/or Social Networking Sites (SNS) especially if the classes are taking place in smart classrooms. The students are convinced that they have not only developed a system of multi-tasking but are also certain that this system delivers. They are confident that they are capable of simultaneously following both the lecture and the information generated by their smart phones, tablets or computers. They also believe they can exist in the ‘here and now’ (physical presence) and in the ‘there and then’, aided by their devices. The students’ belief runs contrary to research conducted by Lila Davachi, a New York University neuroscientist, which found that digital media have a ‘severe impact on cognitive function, in particular memory’, and when the brain is not given a rest you hinder the brain’s ability to consolidate memories and experiences’ (Roberts 2010). Dan Roberts (2010) writes that sites such as twitter can be ‘“infantilising” the 21st-century mind. Our social-media-saturated brains are [...] characterised by a short attention span, sensationalism, inability to emphasise and a shaky sense of identity’. The survey asked the students questions specifically related to the frequency and the use of the mobile phones, tablets and SNS in and out of lecture halls. A total of 58 per cent of those surveyed responded that they own a blackberry or an iPhone, which they find themselves continuously checking. A total of 60 per cent of those surveyed admitted that a mobile phone takes precedent over a social outing with friends, in the sense that even when amongst friends drinking coffee they would respond to a call on a mobile phone and carry out a conversation. Sherry Turkle describes this phenomenon as ‘alone together’ (2012). Moreover, Turkle believes ‘the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are’ (2012). When cell or mobile phones were first introduced, and by their sheer mobility, they were associated with urgency and confined within the realm of emergency (a fact previously associated with pagers) as opposed to being just facilitators of communication between people as in the case of the home phone. Since the mobile phones’ inception and their omnipresence in society, this association has not been lost; the device is consistently demanding attention when switched on, be it through a ring or a message. Individual numbers Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal and various ringtones allowed by the device symbolically become identities of the persons sending or receiving them. (With a traditional home ring, the call theoretically could be for anyone living in the household assuming that the household has more than one dweller.) Granted any ring, be it from a mobile or house phone, interrupts by calling attention to itself, but the implication of urgency still resides with the mobile ring or message, even though the receiver at times chooses to ignore it. To act on a mobile call, a new reality is created. To answer a home phone call one rarely feels transported to the world of the caller. Instead, one feels anchored in the home having a conversation with the caller. Barring an anxious or an informed wait for an important call, the house phone is usually answered more leisurely. As I have previously mentioned, the mobile phone ring or a flashing message on the other hand demands more attention that is urgent. To endorse this new reality, the phone bearer has to act fast. When responding to the demands of the mobile, the person is transported from the actual physical presence to the hyperreal; here and now is consequently replaced by an unidentified time and location. Ruth M. Rettie argues ‘Mobile phone communication affects the use of time and the role of place; an important spatio-temporal effect is its distribution of presence in simultaneous interactions’ (2005: 19). She adds, ‘When people are on the phone, there is a sense in which they are in two places at one time’ (Rettie 2005: 20). The actual call occurs in space but not in the place considering that ‘Places are located in spaces, but not all spaces are places’ (Rettie 2005: 19). Therefore, a ring, which is real, transports the caller into another world, the virtual, which is perceived through the experience and not through the presence. Initially, responding to the demands of the phone is a matter of choice. The device is continuously demanding attention via its various apps. Most of the time, the phone bearer opts to react. In doing so, a metathesis of sorts occurs; the receiver of the call has symbolically stepped out of his or her physical surroundings to another locale (virtual) deemed more important. This virtual world not only emulates the real but also transcends it to become the hyperreal and subsequently the more important world. But whose world is it? The lines are blurred; is the caller the real person; does the person answer to assert that he or she is the real one? Erving Goffman states: When an individual [...] recognizes a particular event, he tends […] to imply in this response (and in effect employ) one or more frameworks or schemata of interpretation that are seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful. (1974: 21, original emphasis) Given that attention is ‘a limited source’, and one can only focus ‘on a particular framed experience, becoming engrossed’ in its presence, ‘the frame [in this case the call] defines the nature of the presence’ (Rettie 2005: 22). By virtue of its implication, a mobile phone interaction is rendered urgent and is therefore, more meaningful and ultimately more real. If reality is valued more than virtuality, then it is pertinent that the call or the message is acted upon, or the social site checked. In this action lies a feeble attempt at asserting the reality within the person, an ontological confirmation of physically being-in-theworld. Rettie argues, ‘in phone calls people feel that they are together, “on the phone”’, a together that can only exist in the virtual world (2005: 21). The voices and the sounds carried through the mobile (simulation) and the immediate 43 Hania A. M. Nashef interaction can evoke a real situation through the process of simulation (Heim 1993: 67). Slavoj Žižek states that ‘people are no longer psychologically able to cope with the dazzling rhythm of technological development and the social changes that accompany it – things simply move too fast’ (2001: 12). The accelerated pace of media advancement continually transports the user from one invention to another. Žižek adds that as soon as one becomes accustomed to one invention, a newer one supplants it, denying the person ‘the most elementary “cognitive mapping”’ (2001: 12). In order to regain the self, Žižek recommends that one drift along while at the same time try to retain an ‘inner distance and indifference towards the mad dance of this accelerated process’ (2001: 13). In Žižek’s proposal lies its antithesis. If one were to ‘let oneself go’ à propos the technological changes, one is in longer in command and hence cannot maintain an indifferent stance (Žižek 2001: 13). Moreover, Heim asserts that we ‘cannot locate the anchor for our reality check outside the fluctuating, changing world [… yet] we need some sense of metaphysical anchoring [...] to enhance’ the virtual world (1993: 131). Failing this anchoring to the real world, the virtual can never be grasped and according to Heim can be maddening (1993: 131). The accelerated pace of technology development brings with it an urgency that is imposed by the demands of this advanced technology. In essence, the mad dance mesmerizes and engulfs. Once in its clutches, one cannot step out. The distance that Žižek proposes is based on an insight that recognizes that this technological advancement is ‘just a nonsubstantial proliferation of semblances which do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being’ (2001: 13). Very few can boast such an insight; they have entered the world of the hyperreal, through this amalgamation of the virtual and the real, and by virtue of the hyper seeming more real than the real itself, the original worlds are invariably distorted. The lines of demarcation become blurred and they become lost in the simulacra posing as the original world. In addition, it successfully achieves this through its consistent demands on the individual. BRIDGING THE REAL WITH THE UNREAL IN THE HYPERREAL Tablets and smart phones can also function as the bridge between the worlds, the real on the one side and the extended world they unveil on the other. By providing 24-hour direct access to the Internet, this other world, which is easily grasped, becomes more real. Social networking sites operate in a similar manner. They become addictive through the information they continually provide; the urgent demand created by these sites not only stuns the users by the enormity of data but also inverts the importance of the information provided; too much data results in its antithesis; explosion of information results in the hollowing of the being, as the amount can never be digested. In addition, Turkle writes that real life experience is generally messy as ‘its meaning is never exactly clear. Interactive multimedia comes already interpreted. It is already someone else’s version of reality’ (1997: 238), and according to Matthew Lombard and Theresa Ditton (1997) ‘Media experiences that evoke presence tend to be highly involving’. This is much easier to deal with. In the previously mentioned survey, 47 per cent admitted to having the urge to check e-mails and SNS during lectures. Information and virtual interactions with the other in a non-existent world assume paramount importance. One feels compelled to stay abreast with the information that is generated 44 Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal through these sites, such as information posted about friends. It is ironic that these Internet friends become more real than actual friends given the time that one spends with them. Pam Spurr (2010) discusses a patient who not only was oblivious to the time spent on social networking, but also the more time she spent ‘the stronger her desire grew to keep up with how everyone else was spending their time’. Her interest was limited to watching ‘their lives play out across the pages of a site’, and not in any form of live interaction with them (Spurr 2010). Spurr (2010) also affirms that these situations typically lead to isolation from real life. In another study, however (and which is based on an earlier one conducted by Boyd and Ellison), Mark Urista et al. state ‘Many SNS members do not necessarily develop a network to meet new people but rather to communicate with people who are already a part of their existing social networks’ (2008: 217). The fact that they choose to interact with their real friends through a SNS, adds another dimension to their virtual existence. They can no longer relate to the real except through the virtual, which facilitates their immersion into the hyperreal. SNS undoubtedly produce instantaneous results, keeping in mind that people’s demand for quick information is rising. Information delivered at a quicker pace appears to be more real, although computer-generated worlds ‘remain fundamentally opposed to “real” or “actual” reality (at least until virtual realities become so self-sufficient that users live and die in them)’ (Ryan 1995). Furthermore, ‘when the computer provides plausible responses to user inputs [providing instantaneous information] […] it is more likely to be perceived not as a medium but as a social entity’ in itself (Lombard and Ditton 1997). Baudrillard argues, ‘what such machines offer is the spectacle of thought, and in manipulating them people devote themselves more to the spectacle of thought than to thought itself’ (1993: 52). Moreover, Baudrillard adds that the ‘virtual man’ becomes ‘immobile in front of his computer’, making love via the screen and giving lessons via the teleconference, offering himself ‘the spectacle of his own phantasies, of a strictly virtual pleasure’ (1993: 60); he ‘exorcizes both intelligence and pleasure at the interface with the machine’ (1993: 60). The person begins to treat the computer or smart device as the other worthy of a relationship (Turkle 1997: 33). In addition, media ‘experiences that evoke presence tend to be highly involving’ (Lombard and Ditton 1997), especially when occurring in real time. The fact that the individual becomes the spectacle of his or her fantasies introduces a form of deferral of the very individual (I will return to this point at the end of the article). Thus, the metaphysical being-in-the-world has been transformed into beingin-a-non-existent-world, per se. Heim points out: The real world, conceived existentially, functions with built-in constraints that provide parameters for human meaning. One constraint, our inevitable mortality, marks human existence as finite [and] we demarcate our lives into periods of passage as well as into the schedules and deadlines that order our work flow […] We are born at a definite time (natality) and grow up within distinct interactions (family kingships). These impose existential parameters on reality, providing us a sense of rootedness in the earth. (1993: 136) The virtual world allows for the manipulation of the anchor, albeit in a makebelief environment, which is also pleasurable. Similarly to Lacan’s objets à, 45 Hania A. M. Nashef 2. Acar mentions that Although one’s real life social network consists of family members, relatives, neighbors and colleagues as well as friends and is thus thought to be larger than a network limited to college friends, an average Facebook user was found to have 217 network members more than one-anda-half times the number expected in real life. (2008: 77) This calls into question how real these cyber friends are. 46 these sites or virtual machines generate excessive enjoyment in the hope that they compensate for the lack of jouissance, the lack of a metaphysical experience within the real world. In spite of what they have promised or what they have developed to be, they will never be able to replace ‘the thing itself’ (Žižek 2001: 94). Some contend that playing in virtual spaces enables the person to discover the various selves that exist, is in itself a form of jouissance (Žižek 2001: 94). Urista et al. claim ‘MySpace and Facebook enable individuals to play an active role in the socialization process and in constructing their own identity’ (2008: 217). Adam Acar adds ‘The most popular online social network services (OSNS) such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com let their users not only display their social network in their profiles but (supposedly) also control most of the content of their personal pages’ (2008: 63). Conceivably, could this not be a semblance of control, a make-belief, or even a play at control?2 Philipe Riviere (2011) contends that Facebook, which according to him has around 500 million subscribers who ‘log on every day for a total of 700 billion minutes every month’ manipulates the control users actually have. Facebook does not allow users to leave, blocking sites such as Seppukkoo that provide users with the information needed to delete their virtual identity and leave Facebook (Riviere 2011). Seppukkoo encourages users to give up their virtual identities to avoid the blurring of the real and the virtual, to regain their identity (Seppukkoo.com). Riviere (2011) adds, ‘Interactions on Facebook are always positive. You are always allowed to say you “like” something by clicking on an icon but not that you dislike it’. In real life, humans classically have many dislikes. Riviere (2011) remarks, ‘The Facebook experience gives users the impression of being onstage, performing in front of 130 people (the average number of “friends”), who applaud every gesture or witticism’, which invariably results in becoming subsumed by this virtual reflection of one’s physical being, which ultimately feeds on itself, distorting the real. This array of selves is somewhat problematic as a person could be losing site of what is real. Turkle suggests that multiplicity is unacceptable if it is shifting from various identities that cannot communicate as this confusion can lead to immobility (1997: 258). Turkle also maintains that this multiplicity of virtual personae becomes objects-to-think-with (1997: 48). Dichotomy between the real self as in the physical being occupying a concrete space and its unreal selves in the form of playful objects further obstructs what is real – the self becomes the object of jouissance. In such play, the self is deconstructed and fragmented into miniature selves; once broken it cannot be made whole. Furthermore, assuming various roles or selves deconstructs the whole identity of the person; once the mask is removed, the real self fails to emerge, and, therefore, cannot be regained. Nearly 70 per cent of those sampled in the survey admitted to having at least two e-mail accounts and two identities on a SNS. Urista et al. rightly note that the identities of those people who interact via SNS are now identified ‘by their connections and the content they produce online’ (2008: 217). Their value as human beings is thus being structured around their connections or lack of them – the more social media contacts, the more the popularity of the person: Twitter followers are an example of such a belief. They can only exist through the virtual – once that threshold is crossed, can one return? Another has challenged the feeling of belonging to the real. Neil Easterbrook states that when ‘feeling of belonging becomes estranged, alienated, or displaced onto the alien, it results in the uncanny’ (1995: 182). Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal The self has doubled or even multiplied; moreover, lines between the real and the external selves can no longer be defined. PLATO’S CAVE REVISITED In Plato’s ‘The simile of the cave’, this very question is put forth. If one of the prisoners were hypothetically allowed to climb up into the real world, would the person be able to distinguish between the shadows and reality? Would the realization that there is another world, which is deemed real by others, have an impact on the perception of the prisoner at once in the way the prisoner would perceive his previous world and by the cognition gained after having seen the light? Furthermore, would the prisoner want to share this information with the others or would opt to retain this knowledge, as a form of power or possibly the prisoner was unable to decipher this information and chooses to remain silent. In the simile, Plato asks his audience to imagine: […] an underground chamber like a cave, with a long entrance open to the daylight and as wide as the cave. In this chamber are men who have been prisoners there since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads. Some way off, behind and higher up, a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them runs a road, in front of which a curtain-wall has been built, like the screen at puppet shows [… And the question that arises] if they were able to talk to each other, would they not assume that the shadows they saw were the real things? (2003: 241) The prisoners are watching the activities of the outer world from behind a screen; given their condition, to them, these spectral presences reflect the real world. Not only are they unable to distinguish what is real from what is virtual but also are unable to have an indication of the time sequence of the events that are unfolding. In their situation, the shadows are at once real and urgent happenings of the real. The exercise will not only diminish their ability to discriminate or ascertain the facts but also turn them into lesser receptors of a show that will forever exist in a world beyond their physical existence. Our computer screens along with our digital devices function similarly to Plato’s screen. The shadows resemble the virtual reality to which we are constantly exposed. Žižek states that by ‘depriving the Self of any substantial content ends in radical subjectivization, in the loss of the firm objective reality itself’, even though the postmodern critics argue that there is no firm reality anyways (2001: 26). By creating so many fantastical realities, media have validated this notion of the shifting real. Žižek then questions whether we have diminished into monads with no direct window on reality (2001: 52). Exposed to so much information and being able to communicate with the whole globe, have, in effect, reduced our ability to distinguish between the physical and the virtual world. What we encounter is the ‘virtual simulacra’, which we cannot even recognize. According to Baudrillard, information ‘devours its own content’ as instead of creating communication, ‘it exhausts itself in the act of staging communication’ (2004: 80). Moreover, media are constantly prompting us to abandon our old paradigms, asking us to change the ‘fundamental notions of 47 Hania A. M. Nashef what constitutes personal identity, society, [and] environment’ in favour of becoming monads defined by a miniscule presence in a cyber world (Žižek 2001: 32). Žižek adds that the new age wisdom stipulates that we are entering a post-human era of existence, but is it not more accurate to see in this transformation a move not into a post-human being but into a metaphysical being living in a post-human era, in which the self can be liberated, albeit briefly, from the physical body? (2001: 32). Some theorists may see it as liberation from the physical body with all its restrictions, failings and even decay to a recreated body in a virtual space, freeing us from the ‘inertia of material reality’ (Žižek 2001: 6). Two pressing questions arise; are we in fact capable of ridding our self of the spectre of our decaying body (Žižek 2001: 33) or will we ever be able to retract our steps and return to the physical body, should we choose to do so? Jacques Derrida states, ‘a ghost never dies, it remains always to come and to come-back’ (1994: 123). In order to illustrate his point, Derrida resorts to Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, and specifically to the ghost that claims to be Hamlet’s father. From the very first appearance of the spectre, Hamlet becomes out of joint and not only with his times. The apparition has opened up a phantasmal world; once he grants an audience to the spectre, he is drawn into its world, seeking out more information. By welcoming the ghost, Hamlet has allowed himself to cross from his physical world to the ethereal world of the spirit. As the demarcation lines between both worlds become blurred, the ability to return to normalcy, away from the spectral world, becomes nearly impossible. Hamlet aspires to be liberated through the truth or information he is to attain from the ghost, in the hope that once gained, he can revert to his earlier self. Nevertheless, as the spectre can never die, it has the power to haunt. The spectre functions similarly to the personae that are created through the virtual world; they, as with the original persona and/or decaying body, acquire a haunting quality that cannot be shed. Žižek elaborates on the virtual body: The literal ‘enlightenment,’ the ‘lightness of being,’ the relief/alleviation we feel when we freely float in cyberspace (or, even more, in virtual reality), is not the experience of being bodiless, but the experience of possessing another – etheric, virtual, weightless – body, a body which does not confine us to the inert materiality and finitude, an angelic spectral body, a body which can be artificially recreated and manipulated. Cyberspace thus designates a turn, a kind of ‘negation of negation,’ in the gradual progress towards the disembodying of our experience […] in cyberspace, we return to the bodily immediacy, but to an uncanny, virtual immediacy. (2001: 54, original emphasis) Uncanny is the operative word here as the presence that we can assume is a distorted version of the one we once had, ‘a proto-reality of shadowy ghosts and undead entities’ (Žižek 2001: 55). Furthermore, the uncanny does not only reside in the misunderstood but also in its unpredictable manifestation. Like Hamlet’s spectre, it has its demands, which come with a sense of exigency. It is the here and now, the bearer of the truth. It is what will expose the falsehood in the world perceived as authentic. A kind of interplay occurs between the two worlds, an oscillation between the real and the unreal, the truth and untruth, two opposite camps. Similarly, 48 Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal Baudrillard (2004) juxtaposes two worlds, set against one another in a form of jouissance. In his discussion of Disneyland, he states that this fantasy world allows the people to be childish ‘in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the “real” world, and to conceal the fact that true childishness is everywhere’ (2004: 13). In this enchanted world, one feels that one can step in, enact all of one’s childish fantasies and leave, relinquishing the illusions upon exit. Baudrillard argues that this is not possible and not only within Disneyland but also within the state of California in which lines between the real and the imaginary cannot be drawn. In such environs, people no longer function as people; they ‘no longer look at each other, but there are institutes for that. They no longer touch each other, but there is contactotherapy [...] They no longer walk, but they go jogging, etc.’ (Baudrillard 2004: 13). Equally, one does not visit one’s friends but one follows the details of the friends’ lives and other virtual friends on a social network. On the other hand, Esther Dyson contends that social networking sites have an important role to play when a friend passes away, claiming that the memories of the person ‘remain alive and accessible from anywhere [and that the person] will live on much more effectively’, a post-mortem virtual existence that is part of this makebelief world (2010). In his discussion of reality television, Baudrillard (2004) speculates that the term TV vérité is itself ambiguous, as the question that is posed is who is real, the TV or the people on the show. He ascertains, ‘it is TV that renders true’ (2004: 29). He adds given that the ‘eye of TV is no longer the source of an absolute gaze […] externally playing on the opposition of seeing and being seen’; it is the one who is doing the watching (Baudrillard 2004: 29). This is namely because you are always on the other side (Baudrillard 2004: 29). On the other hand, Žižek says virtual reality is ‘experienced as reality without being so. What happens at the end of this process of virtualization, however, is that we begin to experience “real reality” itself as a virtual entity’ (2002: 11). You have become the spectacle. TV has dissolved in life and life has dissolved in TV (Baudrillard 2004: 29). Interestingly, in reality shows, people end up playing themselves and not acting themselves (Žižek 2002: 12). This blending has created a ‘spectralized’ existence, the media being in an ‘outer orbit […] directing the mutation of the real into the hyperreal’ (Baudrillard 2004: 30). TV has succeeded in erasing the defining lines that hitherto existed, ‘the distinction between cause and effect, between active and passive, between subject and object, between the end and the means’ (Baudrillard 2004: 30). We float in the spatial orbit; ‘it is the planet earth that becomes a satellite, it is the terrestrial principle of reality that becomes eccentric, hyperreal, and insignificant’ (Baudrillard 2004: 35). Cyberspace functions in a similar manner; the relationship of the individual vis-à-vis the digital devices and/or electronic media runs parallel to the one between planet earth and the satellite. As soon as the satellites were launched in the earth’s orbit, the latter has lost its autonomy (Baudrillard 2004: 35). The earth does not watch the satellite; yet, the satellite continuously observes the earth from its orbit. For the same reason, digital devices with their various applications and constant information have evolved to be the controlling force over the individual. Turkle writes: ‘A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation”’ (2012). The boy, as with others in this millennium, is forever deferred through the cyber entities that have been created and the devices that allow 49 Hania A. M. Nashef for this cyber existence. To return to Plato’s cave, before realizing that there is a real world outside, the prisoners believe that the shadows on the wall are the whole truth. The proposed visit to the upper world has put everything into question at once in a literal and hypothetical sense. Plato wonders if such a visit could have ruined his sight, or has it in effect ruined the prisoner’s insight into a world he once thought he knew and existed within. The very being of the prisoners is called into question – the truth will never be attained, and henceforth the existence of the prisoner would exist as a continual deferral. CONCLUSION Baudrillard suggests that bridging cannot occur between the body and the image (1993: 60). This in itself creates a constant motion in which the body is forever trying to merge with the image. The hierarchy is henceforth established in favour of the image; it continually resurrects itself in the form of the spectre that never dies and one that is always one-step ahead. The hyperreal has in fact enforced the process of différance, in which being can never be tangible. Derrida argues, ‘différance is not an essence, as it is not anything; it is not life’ (1978: 203, original emphasis). Because of the hyperreal the very being is continually searching for a static concrete form, to avert that which is not life, that which is not being. However, the exercise becomes unattainable as the hyperreal has thrust the individual in perpetual motion, existing in a continually deferred state – a being living in a post-human era controlled by an-other, such as a machine or a smart digital device, whose very essence cannot be grasped. Baudrillard (2005) is anxious about what will happen once transcendence is no longer attainable. He fears: [...] once transcendence is gone things are nothing but what they are and, as they are, they are unbearable. They have lost every illusion and have become immediately and entirely real, shadowless, without commentary. At the same time this unsurpassable reality does not exist anymore. It has no reason to exist for it cannot be exchanged for anything. It has no exchange value. (2005: 1) Transcendence does not allow a possibility for reversal nor does it permit a return to the original. In this world of the hyperreal, in which the virtual is experienced more real than the actual real, we witness the demise of the real. Once the threshold has been crossed, existing in the hyperreal becomes the desired and preferred form of being. 50 Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal APPENDIX Yes No Question 1: Do you have a tablet? Question 2: How often do you use it? Yes No Question 3: Do you have at least one account on SNS? 51 Hania A. M. Nashef Question 4: Do you find interacting on a SNS more beneficial than face-to-face? Yes No Question 5: Do you think SNS fulfill your demands more than emails and/or text messaging? Yes No Question 6: Do you feel that social networks have enhanced your social life? 52 Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal Yes No Question 7: In a lecture do you feel an urge to check your mobile, emails, SNS etc...? Question 8: When sitting with friends do you answer your phone when it rings? Question 9: Are you in the habit of carrying out long conversations on your mobile when with friends? 53 Hania A. M. Nashef 1--2 3--5 6--9 More than 10 Question 10: How many SNS identities do you have? 1--2 3--5 6--9 More than 10 Question 11: How many email accounts do you have? REFERENCES Acar, A. (2008), ‘Antecedents and consequences of online social networking behavior: The case of Facebook’, Journal of Website Promotion, 3: 1/2, pp. 62–83. Baudrillard, J. 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(1993), The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lombard, M. and Ditton, T. (1997), ‘At the heart of it all: The concept of presence’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3: 2, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00072.x. Accessed 14 April 2016. Plato (1931), The Dialogues of Plato IV, London: Oxford University Press. —— (2003), The Republic, London: Penguin Books. Rettie, R. M. (2005), ‘Presence and embodiment in mobile phone communication’, PsychNology Journal, 3: 1, pp. 16–34. Riviere, P. (2011), ‘Facebook: The magic mirror’, January, http://mondediplo. com/2011/01/16facebook. Accessed 14 January 2011. Roberts, D. (2010), ‘Are we too switched on for our own good?’, 18 June, http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/are-we-too-switched-on-forour-own-good-1.642576. Accessed 4 April 2016. Ryan, M.-L. (1995), ‘Introduction: From possible worlds to virtual reality’, Style, 29: 2, pp. 173–183. seppukoo (n.d.), http://www.seppukoo.com/. Accessed 4 April 2016. Spurr, P. (2010), ‘Get a life beyond Facebook’, Gulf News-Unwind, 27 February, p. 2. Tiffin, J. and Terashima, N. (2001), HyperReality: Paradigm for the Third Millenium, London: Routledge. Turkle, S. (1997), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York: Touchstone. —— (2012), ‘The flight from conversation’, 21 April, http://www.nytimes. com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?_r=0. Accessed 4 April 2016. Urista, A. M., Qingwen, D. and Day, D. K. (2008), ‘Explaining why young adults use MySpace and Facebook through uses and gratification theory’, Human Communication, 12: 2, pp. 215–29. Žižek, S. (2001), On Belief, London: Routledge. —— (2002), Welcome to the Desert of the Real, London: Verso. SUGGESTED CITATION Nashef, H. A. M. (2016), ‘Virtuality and différance in the age of the hyperreal’, Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 7: 1, pp. 39–56, doi: 10.1386/ejpc.7.1.39_1 CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS Hania A. M. Nashef is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Nashef holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. Her publications include The Politics of Humiliation in the Novels of J. M. Coetzee (2009), as well as a number of scholarly contributions to edited volumes and journals in the fields of comparative literature, terrorism studies, postcolonial theory, popular culture and media communications. Contact: Department of Mass Communication, College of Arts and Sciences, American University of Sharjah, PO Box 26666, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. 55 Hania A. M. Nashef E-mail: hnashef@eim.ae; hnashef@aus.edu Hania A. M. Nashef has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd. 56 Copyright of Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication is the property of Intellect Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.