Into the Labyrinth:
Postcards as Snapshots of Hyperreality By Erik Richardson
Getting postcards in the mail is such a nice interlude of escapism that it’s hard not to be cheered by them. The particular appeal, I think, seems to be that we feel they have somehow temporarily closed a gap — a gap between ourselves and the sender and a gap between us and the fun or exotic location shown on the postcard. This little letter-backed piece of artwork tells us the sender misses us, she is thinking about us, etc. I would, however, like to consider two brief points along these lines. The first is that in setting themselves up as “closers of the gap,” the postcards are, in a way, the very things that help to create and sustain the perception that there is a gap. This idea of being “separated” in a moment of hypertravel is a problem we may not have been aware that we had. “Oh, here’s a pill for travel sickness; I wonder if I have some travel sickness.” As soon as there is a pill for fixing problem x or y, we buy into the assumption that some of us have that problem. The second point for your reflection is that poems and postcards like these are pale imitations of the real things. Hyperreality is an idea built into contemporary dialogue by Jean Baudrillard, Umberto Eco, and others; in its most succinct form, hyperreality is the state in which the consciousness is no longer able to distinguish between reality and simulations of reality. Italian author Umberto Eco explores the landscape of hyperreality further in his essay, “Travels in Hyperreality,” by suggesting that hyperreality is created as we go: we desire reality, and in the attempt to achieve that desire, we fabricate a false reality that is to be consumed as real. In the case of a postcard from a vacation spot, most of the time the image created is one of the venue during its aesthetic peak, but with a random sample of only one to build from, our minds fall into the habit of imagining the exotic location as if it were the normal or average condition of the place. Thus, there is a sense of closing the gap in space and time between you and the person who sent the card, but the problem is that you have been warped to someplace that doesn’t actually exist and, hence, a place other than the one where the sender is vacationing or visiting. (It may be a small consolation that it turns out the vacationer is not visiting the place she thinks she is, either.) Now, of course, we must consider the fact that in talking about this, I have suggested to you that there is a place where we can stand to see the gaps and overlaps between true and false realities, but because we are no longer able to find the seams where simulacra end and the original, underlying reality begins, that neutral place itself is a simulacrum with a postal code in hyperreality.
Erik Richardson lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his family and assorted pets. The whole group is a tangle of dandelions in the middle of the suburban lawnscape (and takes pride in that). In addition to teaching math and computers and attending grad school in psychology, he runs a small business with his wife, fueling Sci-Fi & Fantasy fandom.
The Centrifugal Eye
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