In his book “Simulacra and Simulations” Jean Baudrillard discuses the way humanity interacts with symbols and the concept of reality. Baudrillard claims that simulacra is not meant to hide the truth, but it is the truth itself that hides the fact that there is no truth at all. Therefore simulacra is in essence truth, and the human experience is a simulation of reality rather than reality itself.

Baudrillard argues that in the modern world simulation is a generation of models of abstract nature that do not have a reference in reality. It is a construct that precedes and constructs the real. It is the “hyper-real”. Baudrillard clarifies his definition of hyperreality by claiming that real has become that of which it’s possible to give an equivalent reproduction whereas hyperreal is that which is always being reproduced, meaning the reproduction of something that has no tangible equivalent. According to Baudrillard our modern society lives inside a hyperreal world where the simulacra replaces the real. An image nowadays is more than a representation of the real, it is reality itself. A reality that cannot be measured or quantify since it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times.

Representation starts from the principle that the sign and the real are equivalent, even if that equivalence is utopian. The concept of Simulacra, on the other hand, starts with the notion of the utopia. It does not possess the qualities of the reality that it represents; nevertheless it has the visual power to convince the viewer to believe it does. It starts with the radical negation of the sign as a value; where an image appears as a sign but has no referent, therefore does not function as a sign. Representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as a false representation, whereas simulation envelopes the hole edifice of representation and claims it as simulacra. This notion of simulacra works under the idea that we live in a world much more complex than what our senses can perceive, therefore what we see, smell, hear, taste and feel is just a simulacra of our reality. Everything around us is simulacra and there is no truth at all.

In terms of language simulacra has a very close relationship with the written form of it. We have constructed a set of phonetic and visual signs that we call language in order to describe the world that surrounds us. Our vocabulary is itself an abstract world that communicates the real. It also subjects all other senses of phenomena to itself by imposing a structure and constructing reality. It masks the absence of reality and takes its place. For this particular reason we can consider language to be simulacra. Language is an instrument that takes over our nervous system and constructs the image of reality in our minds, and we are mere channels of it. Images and language are just a “mapping” surface of everything that conforms reality. Our sensorial perception of the world is also a miniaturization of reality therefore it is a simulacra too. It is under this perspective that we can understand Baudrillard’s statement that “the principle of simulation wins out over the reality principle.”