Baudrillard’Dor: Channeling Lies Wide Shut

During this time of saturation in American media coverage, especially surrounding the U.S. election, the Dor Brothers have been at it again! Their latest mind-bending project, “Lies Wide Shut”, delves into the murky waters of media manipulation and simulation, echoing Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, where the boundary between the real and the simulated becomes increasingly blurred. In true Baudrillardian style, the project leaves us questioning what’s true and what’s merely an artfully constructed illusion.

In Simulacra, Baudrillard famously uses Disneyland as an example of a place that functions as a fantasy while suggesting that the rest of the world has become equally hyperreal. This draws attention to the larger simulation we live in:

“Disneyland est là pour masquer que c’est le pays ‘réel’, toute l’Amérique ‘réelle’, qui est Disneyland… Disneyland est présenté comme imaginaire afin de faire croire que le reste est réel, alors que… l’Amérique qui l’entoure… appartient à l’ordre de l’hyperréel et de la simulation.”

(Translation: “Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation.”) — Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacres et simulation. Éditions Galilée.

The title “Lies Wide Shut”, a clear nod to Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, suggests a deliberate focus on exposing hidden truths that lie beneath the surface of widely accepted societal narratives. This sets the tone for the Dor Brothers’ sharp investigation into the artificiality embedded in our media-saturated world, where carefully curated simulations often mask deeper, uncomfortable realities.