Skip to main content

Am I the only one who is noticing that the TV talking-heads news shows are shifting their approach to...

... makeup? A month or so ago, I couldn't listen to what they were saying because I was exclaiming that they looked like they were wearing rubber masks. It was freaky. The skin did not look like skin. How did I know these were human beings at all rather than simulacra? But something seems to have changed in this past week. Maybe it's the summer heat and air conditioning doesn't work right anymore, but I've seen at least 2 shows with panelists gleaming as if they were sweating. Is this a deliberate reenvisioning of the best way to do makeup for high-definition television? The panelists convey reality more convincingly, and now I can't hear what they're saying because I'm talking over them about how they're all sweating, they're glowing, as if they are live, breathing, feeling human beings.

From the Wikipedia article "Simulacrum":
Simulacra have 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 intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. He gives the example of Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed....
If we could see Jake Tapper eye-to-eye, we would realize... what?!
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. According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no original or no longer has an original (think a copy of a copy without an original). Where Plato saw two types of representation—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."...  
A great topic! To be continued! New tag: "simulacra."
ADDED: Another makeup anomaly I've been seeing is what looks like painted-on lower eyelashes on men — something like what Twiggy did in the 1960s:



I don't think this is drawn on with eyeliner, Twiggy-style. I think it is added on within the computer. Look for these eyelashes, please, and let me know when you see them. They're freaky! I suspect the rubberized look I was seeing was also a computer manipulation.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"It's just a type of berry from Japan, unfortunately. Very cool though!"

Went to a small fruit farm were they grew strawberries crossed with raspberries. from r/pics Rubus illecebrosus — "a red-fruited species of Rubus that originally came from Japan (where is it called バライチゴ, roseberry), but is also very popular in some European countries like Lithuania. Common names include balloon berry and strawberry raspberry."
Post a Comment
Read more

"Apple has suspended its practice of having human contractors listen to users’ Siri recordings to 'grade' them..."

"The company said it would not restart the programme until it had conducted a thorough review of the practice.... The suspension was prompted by a report in the Guardian last week that revealed the company’s contractors 'regularly' hear confidential and private information while carrying out the grading process, including in-progress drug deals, medical details and people having sex. The bulk of that confidential information was recorded through accidental triggers of the Siri digital assistant, a whistleblower told the Guardian. The Apple Watch was particularly susceptible to such accidental triggers, they said.... Although Apple told users that Siri data may be used 'to help Siri … understand you better and recognise what you say,' the company did not explicitly disclose that this entailed human contractors listening to a random selection of Siri recordings, including those triggered accidentally...." The Guardian reports. What is voluntarily stopped can be ...
Post a Comment
Read more

"She inspired me so much, it helped me to slow down. The way she would notice the little things like the colour of the mushrooms on the ground."

"I was focused on goals, like climbing the mountain, but sometimes it's not all about the epic views, it's about enjoying those little moments too." From "Why this 89-year-old is visiting every US national park with her grandson" (BBC). There's also the question why would a young, strong person would travel to grand and extreme landscapes with a companion who is slower and less stable and vigorous. That's my own photograph of mushrooms, noticed on a walk in 2010 in the Apostle Islands National Seashore. It's good to see the small things within the big.
Post a Comment
Read more