The Three Orders of Simulacra

Definition

The three orders of simulacra are Jean Baudrillard's periodization of the history of the sign's relation to the real, set out most concisely in "Simulacra and Science Fiction" (Simulacra and Simulation, 1981/1994). He distinguishes: (1) natural, naturalist simulacra, "founded on the image, on imitation and counterfeit," harmonious and optimistic, aiming at "the restitution or the ideal institution of nature made in God's image" — the order of the utopia; (2) productive, productivist simulacra, "founded on energy, force, its materialization by the machine and in the whole system of production" — a "Promethean aim of a continuous globalization and expansion," the order of science fiction and of desire; and (3) simulacra of simulation, "founded on information, the model, the cybernetic game — total operationality, hyperreality, aim of total control." Each order has its imaginary: utopia for the first, science fiction "strictly speaking" for the second, and for the third — "the good old imaginary of science fiction is dead." The orders correspond to the technical regimes of counterfeit, production, and simulation, and to the operatic (theatrical machinery), the operative (industrial productive power) and the operational (cybernetic metatechnique). The third order is where "the models… are themselves an anticipation of the real, and thus leave no room for any sort of fictional anticipation." See simulation-hyperreality, precession-of-simulacra, four-phases-of-the-image.

Key Thinkers

• Jean Baudrillard — the concept's author: the three orders; utopia/science-fiction/simulation; the operatic/operative/operational triad (1981/1994).
• Guy Debord — the historical neighbour: the spectacle's own staging of image-regimes.
• Paul Virilio — the third order's military-technical register: "metatechnique," the automation of perception.

Related Concepts

• Simulation / Hyperreality — the condition the third order names.
• Precession of Simulacra — the mechanism of the third order.
• The Four Phases of the Image — the image's parallel itinerary; the orders are the historical frame, the phases the phenomenological one.
• *Crash* (Ballard) — Baudrillard's paradigm of third-order science fiction: "neither fiction nor reality anymore."
• Postmodernism — the cultural period the third order is often equated with.
• Modernity — the second order's regime of production, energy and expansion.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Simulacra and Simulation (Baudrillard 1981/1994) — the defining source ("Simulacra and Science Fiction"): the three orders itemized; "the good old imaginary of science fiction is dead"; the operatic/operative/operational triad; Crash and Philip K. Dick as third-order limit-cases; the East German "simulacra factories" as real-world third-order simulation.
• Postmetropolis (Soja 2000) — the orders applied urbanistically; the third order as the Simcity/Exopolis register.
• Introduction to Spectacle and the Screen (Proto 2023) — the orders carried into architecture and the screen.
• Jean Baudrillard: The Defence of the Real (Butler 1999) — the chapter's fullest reading (ch. 1): first order — stucco ("a sort of general equivalent of all the others," 'OS', 88) and the automaton preserve the difference that allows reference; second — the assembly line's equivalence ('OS', 97) and the robot; third — the referenda, polls and duopoly ("a tactical doubling of monopoly," 'OS', 133–4) that produce "only a simulated real, an effect of reality… a 'tactical hallucination'" ('OS', 117); Baudrillard's own late rejection of the historical project ("the order of simulation is antinomical to genealogy," BL, 102, via Butler n. 3); and the fourth order of The Transparency of Evil "in fact no different from the third" (p. 46). See precession-of-simulacra, paradox-of-the-sign, model-and-series.

Open Questions

• Does the third order genuinely supersede the second, or can the orders coexist and "contaminate" each other (as Baudrillard admits: "one order can certainly contaminate another")? If so, is the periodization heuristic rather than historical?
• If science fiction is dead because the models pre-empt fiction, what becomes of theory — Baudrillard's other "specific genre" that "the same wavering and indeterminate fate puts an end to"? Is theory itself third-order?
• Architecture's relation to the orders: does the "decorated shed" belong to the first (counterfeit), the machine-for-living to the second, and the parametric rendered blob to the third? (See decorated-shed, machine-for-living, parametricism.)