As part of the situation GPUS Making Love, May 2025, Berlin.

Words on words…

When movement in real life reflects digital performance, how can we distinguish where mockery ends and sincerity begins? Has questioning hyperreferentiality in the digital realm become irrelevant, since it is naturally absorbed and neutralized by its own commodification? The consequences for our society appear evident, as truth can be easily obscured by a mere string of spectacles in succession.

Our beloved Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality offers a framework for understanding this. He describes a condition in which representations and simulations no longer refer to any original reality but replace it entirely, creating a “real” that is a copy without an original. Within our contemporary gated internet culture and its monogamous relationship with capitalism, online identities, gestures, and performances circulate as commodified simulations intended for consumption and attention rather than genuine expression. The digital realm becomes a hyperreal space where meaning is eclipsed by value, and where currency extraction is built on meta layers stacked endlessly on top of one another.

In this context, the question remains: is resistance still possible or even meaningful in a reality shaped by hyperreality and commodification?

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