Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard that discusses the relationship between reality, symbols and society. Simulacra are copies that represent elements that never existed or that no longer have their equivalent in reality. Simulation is the imitation of an operation or process existing in the real world.
Simulacra and Simulation deals with symbols and signs and the way they relate to contemporary existence. Baudrillard claims that current society has replaced all reality and meanings with symbols and signs, making the human experience a simulation of reality. Furthermore, these simulacra are not merely mediations of reality, nor even misleading mediations of reality; they simply hide that something like reality is irrelevant to our current understanding of our lives.
Orders of Simulacra
According to Baudrillard, there are three categories of simulacra. In the first, the simulacrum is natural, based on the imitation of reality. It is optimistic and utopian, aware of the impossibility of equating representation and reality (as seen, in the pre-modern period, in paintings, for example). In this case, the differentiation is kept and the referential is maintained, that is, the real object. In the author's words: "it is the island of utopia opposite the continent of reality". In the second category, the simulacrum is productive, mechanical, metallurgical, materialized by the machine, producing power. It appears in the period of the Industrial Revolution. Here, the massively produced copy threatens the source, the real object, the original reference. In the third category, the simulacrum is cybernetic, computerized. It relies on information and total control.