The New Real as the New Order of the Virtual and Hyperreal Existence Cover Image

The New Real as the New Order of the Virtual and Hyperreal Existence
The New Real as the New Order of the Virtual and Hyperreal Existence

Author(s): Iva Šokičić
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Contemporary Philosophy, Existentialism, Philosophy of Mind, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Akademija Nauka i Umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine
Keywords: Jean Baudrillard; body; hyperreal; existence; the Internet; the “New Real”; mind; real; reality; sexuality; simulation; virtual;

Summary/Abstract: The essay is an innovative and original reflection of the problematics of the new virtual social reality and sexuality as re-instating and reinventing the real as the “New Real”, written in Baudrillard’s terminology, inspired by his works Seduction, Simulacra and Simulation and The Transparency of Evil, Essays on Extreme Phenomena for rethinking and deconstructing theories of social relationships, the philosophy of the postmodern society and sexuality in terms of simulation and hyperreality with significant references to Lacan’s conceptual system in his seminars “Love and the Signifier” in his Seminar XX. The interpretation of the “new reality”, the real and the hyperreal will make significant comparisons of Baudrillard and Lacan, referring to similar concepts, but understood and illustrated in a different context of Baudrillard’s philosophy of the postmodern and post-social state, simulations and technological virtual life and Lacan’s psychoanalytical hermeneutics of social and sexual relationships between signifiers. Theories and references studied and elaborated are used to provide and elaborate the idea and thesis of deconstruction of social and sexual relations in the “new order”, known as the “New Normal”, equivalently named the “New Real”, which signifies the “Real” in both Lacan’s, but primarily Baudrillard’s sense. The main focus is on the phenomenon of Internet interaction, its simulated reality, hyperreal lives formed by illusions of personal and interpersonal omnipresence, conceptualizing and designing social and sexual relations in virtual communication. In the current age, it is impossible to imagine the totality of life, consisted of work, entertainment, social contacts and sexuality without technology and virtual communication and relations as the only way of living and interacting with others. Virtual reality inevitable not only implies but impose virtual interpersonal social and sexual relations as social interaction via the screen, visual and auditive socializing and relationships, without experiencing the live visage or a touch of another person.

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 01+02
  • Page Range: 43-66
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: English