Umberto Eco: "Travels in Hyper Reality"

In the essay Travels in Hyper Reality, Umberto Eco discusses issues pertaining to the area of reproductions. Eco begins with a description of holography, and the realism it gives to a three-dimensional representation of two women. Holography and it's potentials allow the creation of a form of hyper reality, in which the representation, or "fake" is more real than original itself. In America, the dedication to the representation of important moments in time, or "memories" provides for places dedicated to them, such as museums, establishing "fortresses of solitude" where, much like that of Superman, people may reflect on the past. The representations attempt to approximate the real to the point of creating a reality better than the original. The representation of Johnson's Oval Office is not only accurate, but made to be prettier and last longer than the original. Taken to the next level, this level of detail not only represents real memories, but "memories" out of the works of fiction. The care to detail given to the Oval Office is passed onto Alice's encounter with the Mad Hatter in Wonderland. The realism of both blurs the distinction between what is a reproduction of reality and a reproduction in fiction. Upon seeing displays of both mixed together can overwhelm the senses and confuse the real and the fake. At the highest level, these hyper realities don't merely attempt bring the real to life, but to make a production that reduces the real to being unnecessary, as in the case of wax reproductions of the Last Supper.

The concept of creating hyper reality has a large showing in architecture. Many would be quick to draw the conclusion that modern technology, specifically digital modeling, is what has made this possible in architecture. However, hyper reality has been present in architecture since artists attempted realistic representations of buildings both existing and non-existing. For architects today, attempts at creating hyper reality are often part of a ruse to show a proposed building in a way better than what could be achieved in the physical world. These hyper realities show an attention to detail ranging from hard edges to clean floors showing no sign of building use. These images are timeless; they will not dirty with use, weather over time, or change configuration because of the whims of the building's owner. At the next level, these pristine models incorporate the fourth dimension, and are able to break the barriers of static imagery. Now, the fake ages as the real, becomes dirty, gets used, and ultimately breaks down. Now the model can imitate all the facets of reality, and at a level better than reality, through the modeling of the ideal. But, hyper reality falls short in one area of architecture; architecture is space making, and one can not physically occupy an image, even if they can plant themselves within with photo software. In the end, hyper reality can represent imagery better than the real, but spatial experience.