Simulacrum (plural: simulacra), from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity",^[1] was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original.^[2] Philosopher Fredric Jameson offers photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, where a painting is sometimes created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real.^[3] Other art forms that play with simulacra include Trompe l'oeil,^[4] Pop Art, Italian neorealism and the French New Wave.^[3]

Simulacra in philosophy[link]

The simulacrum has long been of interest to philosophers. In his Sophist, Plato speaks of two kinds of image-making. The first is a faithful reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. The second is distorted intentionally in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. He gives an example of Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on top than on bottom so that viewers from the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed. This example from visual arts serves as a metaphor for philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to distort truth in such a way that it appeared accurate unless viewed from the proper angle.^[5] Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in The Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality.^[6]

Postmodernist French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. Where Plato saw two steps of reproduction — faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum) — Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality, (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which “bears no relation to any reality whatsoever.” ^[7] In Baudrillard’s concept, like Nietzsche’s, simulacra are perceived as negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic, Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which accepted ideals or “privileged position” could be “challenged and overturned.”^[8] Deleuze defines simulacra as "those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal resemblance."^[9]

Simulacra in literature, film, and television[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Artificial beings[link]

Simulacra often make appearances in speculative fiction. Examples of simulacra in the sense of artificial or supernaturally or scientifically created artificial life forms include Ovid’s Galatea from Metamorphoses, the medieval golem of Jewish folklore, Mary Shelley’s creature from Frankenstein, Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, Karel Čapek's RUR (the work from which the word robot derives), and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with "Maria," the robotrix, as well as the illusions of absent loved ones created by an alien life form in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris.

The work of Philip K. Dick[link]

The philosophically oriented American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick returned obsessively to the theme of simulacra both in the form of artificial environments, events, artifacts, organisms and even worlds. Examples include the artificial humans and animals in his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, We Can Build You, the protagonist of "The Electric Ant" and, more realistically, the fake antiques present in his The Man in the High Castle (which also deals with a counterfeit world, of sorts). The pertinently entitled The Simulacra is about a fraudulent government led by a presidential simulacrum (more specifically, an android).

Simulated environments[link]

Apart from the ever-popular notion of virtual reality worlds found in much cyberpunk (such as The Matrix), physically created appear in countless works. Michael Crichton visited this theme several times, in Westworld and the Jurassic Park series. Other examples include the elaborately staged worlds of The Truman Show, Synecdoche, New York and Equilibrium, among countless other examples. (In The Truman Show, Truman has, in effect, a simulated life as well, which an invisible team of media professionals have created entirely without his knowledge. This arguably makes Truman, an ordinary human otherwise, in terms of his nature, a partially artificial being.)

Other uses[link]

Some stories focus on simulacra as objects, such as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The term also appears in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris.

Another noteworthy example of the usage of the term simulacrum in literature comes from 20th century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story "The Circular Ruins". The "dreamed man" in the story is an example of a simulacrum, as he is a representation of a mortal human being. In the context of the prominent magical realism in "The Circular Ruins", a simulacrum can create its own simulacrum.

Simulacra and recreation[link]

Recreational simulacra include reenactments of historical events or replicas of landmarks, such as Colonial Williamsburg and the Eiffel Tower, and constructions of fictional or cultural ideas, such as Fantasyland at The Walt Disney Company's Magic Kingdom. The various Disney parks have by some philosophers been regarded as the ultimate recreational simulacra, with Baudrillard noting that Walt Disney World Resort is a copy of a copy, “a simulacrum to the second power.”^[10] In 1975, Italian author Umberto Eco expressed his belief that at Disney’s parks, “we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it."^[11] This is for some an ongoing concern. Examining the impact of Disney’s simulacrum of national parks, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, environmentalist Jennifer Cypher and anthropologist Eric Higgs expressed worry that “the boundary between artificiality and reality will become so thin that the artificial will become the centre of moral value.”^[12] Eco also refers to commentary on watching sports as sports to the power of three, or sports cubed. First, there are the players who participate in the sport, the real; then the onlookers merely witnessing it; then, the commentary itself on the act of witnessing the sport. Visual artist Paul McCarthy has created entire installations based upon Pirates of the Caribbean, and theme park simulacra, with videos playing inside the installation itself.

Caricature as simulacra[link]

An interesting example of simulacra is caricature. Where an artist draws a line drawing that closely approximates the facial features of a real person, the sketch cannot be easily identified by a random observer; the sketch could just as easily be a resemblance of any person, rather than the particular subject. However, a caricaturist will exaggerate prominent facial features far beyond their actuality, and a viewer will pick up on these features and be able to identify the subject, even though the caricature bears far less actual resemblance to the subject.

Simulacra in iconography[link]

Beer (1999: p. 11) employs the term 'simulacrum' to denote the formation of a sign or iconographic image whether iconic or aniconic in the landscape or greater field of Thanka Art and Tantric Buddhist iconography. For example, an iconographic representation of a cloud formation sheltering a deity in a thanka or covering the auspice of a sacred mountain in the natural environment may be discerned as a simulacrum of an 'auspicious canopy' (Sanskrit: Chhatra) of the Ashtamangala.^[13] Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena approaches a cultural universal and may be proffered as evidence of the natural creative spiritual engagement of the experienced environment endemic to the human psychology.

Word usage[link]

The Latinised plural simulacra is interchangeable with the anglicised version simulacrums. ^[14]

See also[link]

Look up simulacrum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Jean Baudrillard
• Gilles Deleuze
• Pastiche
• Simulated reality
• Songlines
• Thoughtform

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Two Essays: Simulacra and Science Fiction; Ballard’s Crash" Baudrillard, Jean
• "The Simulacrum's Revenge," sec 3.2 of Flatline Constructs: Gothic and Cybernetic-Theory Fiction Fisher, Mark

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (born 26 November 1978) is an American poet and writer. Most recently, she has been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry^[1] and the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency.^[2]

Life[link]

A native of Philadelphia, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1996 and received a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from New York University in 2000. Her brother, Kevin Aptowicz, is a professor of Physics at West Chester University.^[3]

Poetry[link]

Aptowicz was introduced to the New York City Poetry Slam community by NYU classmate, Beau Sia.^[4] In November 1998, at age 19, she founded the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam series.^[5] NYC-Urbana was the formal continuation of a poetry slam series started by Bob Holman and as of 2008, has earned three National Poetry Slam Championships: 1997 (as Team Mouth Almighty), 2000 and 2002.^[6] Aptowicz was a member of the 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2010 NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam teams.^[6] Well-known poets who have been on NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam teams including Taylor Mali, Beau Sia, Anis Mojgani and Sarah Kay, among others.^[6] Aptowicz was also the 2010 Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWps) representative for NYC-Urbana.^[7] As of 2010, NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam is still held weekly at the Bowery Poetry Club. Aptowicz currently runs the series with Taylor Mali, Shappy Seasholtz and Jeanann Verlee.^[8]

Aptowicz's most recent book is Everything is Everything, which Write Bloody Publishing released in January 2010. In 2011, Write Bloody Publishing also re-released Aptowicz's four previous books -- Dear Future Boyfriend (2000), Hot Teen Slut (2001), Working Class Represent (2003) and Oh, Terrible Youth (2007) -- which had originally been published by the Ann Arbor basement press, The Wordsmith Press.^[9]

Aptowicz appeared in the concert film Taylor Mali & Friends Live at the Bowery Poetry Club and in the documentary Slam Planet (2006).^[10] In 2003, she served the overseas mentor for Mouth Off!, a youth poetry show commissioned by the Sydney Opera House.^[11] She frequently tours with poets Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani on their "poetry revivial tours," joining them on their 2008 Junkyard Ghost Revival tour,^[12] 2009 Elephant Engine High Dive Revival tour^[13] and 2010 Night Kite Revival tour.^[14]

In November 2010, it was announced that Aptowicz had been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.^[1] She is one of only handful of "slam poets" who have won NEA grants. As of 2011, the other poets are Hal Sirowitz (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1993,^[15] and won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 1994^[16]); Jeffrey McDaniel (who was on numerous DC and California slam teams in the mid to late 1990s, and won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2003^[16]); and Adrienne Su (who was on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Poetry Slam team in 1991,^[15] and won a NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2007^[17]).

In February 2012, it was announced that Aptowicz had been awarded the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency.^[2] The residency takes place in the former residence of poet Amy Clampitt and provides "an established or emerging poet or literary scholar with the rare gift of extended time and a reasonable stipend so that he or she may substantially further his or her creative work."^[18] Aptowicz is the first poet from a poetry slam background to be awarded this residency.^[19]

Non-fiction[link]

Aptowicz has published non-fiction essays and articles in such publications as Bust magazine, About.com's Poetry Channel and the spoken word anthology Word Warriors.^[20]

In 2008, Soft Skull Press published Aptowicz's Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam.^[21] U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins wrote that the book "leaves no doubt that the slam poetry scene has achieved legitimacy and taken its rightful place on the map of contemporary literature"^[22] and the Washington Post named it one of five Notable Books on Exploring Poetry in 2008.^[23] Aptowicz spent 4 years writing the book, which "explores the birth, growing pains and continuing development of the Poetry Slam."^[21] The book features interviews with Saul Williams, Maggie Estep, Bob Holman and Slamnation director Paul Devlin, among others.

Aptowicz also penned the non-fiction screenplay, Mütter, a screenplay based on the life of Mütter Museum founder Thomas Dent Mütter. The screenplay would go on to win the 2003 "Set In Philadelphia" Screenwriting Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival^[24] and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship at the 2004 Hampton International Film Festival.^[25] In 2005, she was invited to attend the 2005 Sloan Film Summit in support of the screenplay, and was commissioned to write an article about her experiences at the Summit by New York City's Museum of the Moving Image.^[26] As of 2008, the screenplay remains unproduced, although a short based on the feature-length script was created as a part of the Philadelphia Film Festival prize package.^[27]

In 2010, Aptowicz was named the 2010-2011 University of Pennsylvania ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residence. She will be using the residency to work on "a non-fiction book about the life and times of Thomas Dent Mutter."^[28] The Mütter Museum has granted Aptowicz full access to their museum, library and archives for the duration of the residency so that she may conduct her research for the book, and the Mütter Museum's Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine has additionally awarded Aptowicz with a Wood Institute Travel Grant to help further fund and support her work on this project.^[28]

Published works[link]

Books[link]

• Everything is Everything (Write Bloody Publishing, 2010; ISBN 0-9842515-1-0)
• Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press, 2008; ISBN 1-887012-17-6)
• Oh Terrible Youth (2007) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1-935904-66-3)
• Working Class Represent (2004) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1-935904-72-8)
• Hot Teen Slut (2001) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1-935904-68-X)
• Dear Future Boyfriend (2000) (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011; ISBN 1-935904-70-1)

Audio CDs[link]

• Sass Machine, 2001

Anthologies[link]

Collections in which Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's work is included

• Elephant Engine High Dive Revival (Write Bloody Publishing, 2009; ISBN 0-9821488-9-5)
• The Good Things About America (Write Bloody Publishing, 2009; ISBN 098214881)
• Junkyard Ghost Revival (Write Bloody Publishing, 2008; ISBN 0-9815213-6-3)
• Herding Kites: A Celebration of Australian Writing (Affirm Press, 2008; ISBN 0-9803746-4-2)
• The Last American Valentine (Write Bloody Publishing, 2007; ISBN 0-9789989-7-9)
• Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007; ISBN 1-58005-221-5)
• His Rib: Stories, Poems & Essays by Her (Penmanship Books, 2007; ISBN 0-9789695-2-9)
• Bowery Women (YBK Publishers, 2006; ISBN 0-9764359-8-5)
• Poems from the Big Muddy: National Poetry Slam 2004 Anthology (Co-Editor) (The Wordsmith Press, 2005; ISBN 1-893972-22-4)
• Poetry Slam (Manic D Press, 2000; ISBN 0-916397-66-1)
• Will Work for Peace (Zero Panik Press, 1999; ISBN 1-922268-82-5)

CD Anthologies[link]

Collections in which Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's work is included

• Excellence in the Field of Awesomeness (The Wordsmith Press, 2009)
• Attack of the Urbanabots (The Wordsmith Press, 2007)
• New High Score (The Wordsmith Press, 2004)
• Best of Urbana 2003 (The Wordsmith Press, 2003)
• Prayer Wheel Junkies: Best of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam 2002 (KPS, 2002)
• Urbana: Bowery Poetry Club (The Wordsmith Press, 2002)
• Spoken Word Underground (The Wordsmith Press, 2001)
• NYC Slams (Anthology) (PoetCD, 2000)

Awards[link]

• NEA Fellowship: National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship for Poetry ^[1]
• Winner: Writer-in-Residence University of Pennsylvania (2010–2011)^[28]
• Winner: Poet in Residence: Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana (2009).^[29]
• Winner: Nadine B. Andreas Public Scholar in Speech Communication, Minnesota State University, Mankato (2008).^[30]
• Winner: Hampton International Film Festival's Sloan Fellowship for Screenwriting (2004).^[25]
• Semi-Finalist: Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting for Mütter (2004).
• Winner: Grand Prize, Philadelphia Film Festival for Mütter (2003).^[24]
• Winner: Myers Foundation Grant (2001 and 2003).
• Two-Time Winner: National Poetry Slam: Slammaster's Slam (2000, 2001).
• Three-time Winner: NYU/Barnes and Noble Monologue Contest (1999–2000)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's official website
• Five-Part Interview with Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz by Roxane Gay, published in HTML Giant
• Audio of "Lit," "To Whom It May Concern," "All I'd Leave Behind," "On Reading Unrequited Love Poems," and "Mother" (among others) on Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel; Includes nine-part podcast series on Words In Your Face

See also[link]

Poetry portal

• Performance poetry
• Poetry slam
• Spoken word
• Bowery Poetry Club