Task 4 - Hyperreality

Write a short analysis (300 words approx) of an aspect of our culture that is in some way Hyperreal. Hyperreality is an awkward and slippery concept. Wikipedia defines it as follows-

Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness defines as "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience. 

Wikipedia cites the following examples to get you thinking (but please come up with your own!)

• A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).
• Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts" (e.g. "General Ignorance" from QI, where the questions have seemingly obvious answers, which are actually wrong).
• Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.
• Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing'): Disney World; Dubai; Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas.
• TV and film in general (especially "reality" TV), due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds. The current trend is to glamorize the mundane using histrionics.
• A retail store that looks completely stocked and perfect due to facing, creating a world of endless identical products.
• A life which cannot be (e.g. the perfect facsimile of a celebrity's invented persona).
• A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of an unattainable partner.^[7]
• A newly made building or item designed to look old, or to recreate or reproduce an older artifact, by simulating the feel of age or aging.
• Second Life The distinction becomes blurred when it becomes the platform for RL (Real Life) courses and conferences, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or leads to real world interactions behind the scenes.
• Weak virtual reality which is greater than any possible simulation of physical reality.

RESPONSE:

I am focusing on Alton Towers, I used to go there a lot as a child and have visited pretty much every year since I was 13.

Alton Towers is the most visited theme park in the UK, estimated 2.7 million per year with a maximum capacity of 28,000 guests per day. It is located in Staffordshire north of the village Alton, where it takes its name. Alton Towers is based on the ground of a semi-ruined gothic revival country house, its former owner was a wealthy man titled the Earls of Shrewsbury, dating back to 700AD.

During the 1800's the Earl of Shrewsbury inhabited the grounds, by the early 1900's the house was beginning to decay due to neglect. In 1921 the Earl died, and three years later local businessmen bought the sight and formed Alton Towers limited. Over WW2 the grounds were used for army needs, which lead to further damage of the grounds. Then in the 80’s Denis Bagshaw bought the site and began laying out plans of a theme park, by the 90’s the park was already highly successful with some of the classic rides in place.

Within the park toady there are many themes:

Mutiny Bay (pirates),

Katanga Congo (African tribe village),

Gloomy Wood (is a small haunted house theme),

Forbidden Valley (a post-apocalyptic landscape),

Dark Forest (superficial scary forest),

Cloud Coo Coo Land (for children based in a fantasy land),

X-sector (sinister futuristic government facility),

Old MacDonald's Farmyard (on a traditional farmland),

The Gardens (the Earls old grounds).

It seems like today that people want to escape reality of the everyday life, school, work, retirement, to get away from the daily routine, Alton Towers offers that for a day. A place where different times, cultures and lands exist in one space. It begins the question of why does this attract so may returning visitors per year.

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

― Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

Baudrillard’s theory can be applied to Alton Towers, as more dreamlands are created, more visitors and more selections, visitors views on the world are warped. Visitors are over powered with visuals of an African tribe, so from that point on when an African tribe is thought of the minds likes it to the experiences of Alton Towers. Adding new visuals to existing cultures and countries, changing the truth, so it is lost to that visitor.

Alton Towers also works as a holiday, for a day visitors get to travel throughout time whilst walking through only a few meters. With these new associations within the different themes they feel no need to experience these areas for themselves. Hyper reality changes societies views on reality, by making us believe things are true, when in fact they are false. This can relate to almost anything man-made as humans constantly mold things based on their own experiences and opinions, solidifying the question of how do we know what is real anymore?