The movie Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise, starts with the following dialogue:
"New York, before I was born... A place I've only seen pictures of... I know you. But we've never met. I'm with you, but I don't know your name. I know I'm dreaming, but it feels like more. It's like a memory. How could it be?"
Just like in the movie Oblivion, today the difference between the past and the future, the real and the virtual, is disappearing a little more every day. We are already living in the world of photographs and sharing of images. Places whose photographs we only see but have never visited, people we only correspond with and never meet... As we are buried in the virtual, the moments that are thought to be lived more than they are continue to present us in an artificial way, a reality that has no principle or purpose...
Simulation means making something that is not a simulation seem like it exists. Today, we live in the age of simulation. Just like the hopelessness and helplessness of today's people, the postmodern era hides a huge corpse behind it.
While the modern era started with the desire to realize utopias, great destructions and wars took place, and the expectation and belief in utopias disappeared as the 21st century entered. After the modern period, it has turned into a place where this concept is marketed rather than a place where utopias are aimed to be realized. This time, governments are marketing utopias under the mask of democracy and societies are marketing utopias under the mask of freedom. (Both transform this concept into a spectacle today)
There is no room for democracy and freedom in the simulation universe. It has never happened. There is only “beyond democracy and freedom”. In other words, ecstatic forms of democracy and freedom now dominate our lives. Their content and purpose have disappeared.
Haven't ideologies lost their content for a long time? Ideologies, which were once completely different from each other, today almost fulfill each other's duties. (Today, the right thought has taken over the duties of the left, and the left thought has taken over the duties of the right.) Although all ideologies and concepts have no meaning after the modern period, they still continue to fulfill their duties as if they had meaning.
Art also has its share of this change; for example, Godard calls cinema "entertainment". Things that were once art now appear as "entertainment". Contemporary art (especially American art) has turned into a kind of entertainment and marketing tool that has the appearance of art today. (Contemporary art is about everyday objects and events, it is instantaneous. Contemporary art has no desire or claim to change and transform the world it lives in. Therefore, the world is nothing but production and marketing with different materials.) In a sense, everything that has lost its content later turns into a market and entertainment culture that has the appearance of social reality.
On the other hand, an issue that many people have been aware of for a long time, but have not been able to express, is that the death of reality has transformed people spiritually and physically into a society of spectacle. This has brought about a celebration similar to the ritual of sacrifice in ancient societies. But this time, people look at the image of reality, not the message. In other words, this visual feast and celebration, which few of us are aware of, has brought about the process of blindness.
The world that used to be visible without looking (mythical, spiritual, etc.) has now revealed a world that is invisible even when looked at (the world of the 21st century eliminates every view. What needs to be discussed now is whether this situation offers us a greater form of freedom or an unprecedented dimension of submission.)
So perhaps today the shadows in Plato's cave no longer belong to humans. It is even doubtful that shadows reflect reality today.
Reality and all the deep-rooted ideas attached to it are figuratively dead, but this time the ghost of reality, which has all the characteristics of reality, has appeared in our lives. After reality dies, perhaps what we have left today is just the spectacle of reality. Well; They are instant values such as image, rating, sales, marketing and performance. Concepts such as rightness, wrongness, morality or immorality no longer have any importance.
So, what happens if a society achieves its utopias & goals, even in the wrong way?
When society achieves its goals one way or another, there is no longer any dream or utopia left to realize. In other words, he will either ignore everything and accept the lie that dreams continue, or he will have to live for more personal and individual needs.
This is exactly what is happening today. (Perhaps freedoms were experienced for a time, and utopias were somehow realized.) But today, we are trying to hide not reality, but the absence of reality. We are all trying to fill the void of this reality with something, without realizing it. We turn this into a show and a celebration. And today we still continue the game of filling the void of the death of reality...
Just like the opening dialogue in the movie Oblivion; We talk to people we don't know, in a place we've only seen photographs of; we know that everything is real and irrational, like a memory... and we know that reality is dead far away...
Ali Alışır
2013