Van Der Watt points out, "Die Antwoord's illegibility and ambivalence is achieved by their obsession with surface and their consistent erosion of depth, continually frustrating our desire to find deep meaning or consistency in their act" ( 2012, p. Perhaps this is exactly the strategy of Die Antwoord, who manipulate the desire for the real through the creation of Zef.ĭie Antwoord appropriate from multiple reference points, treating culture as a found object with which to create their particular brand of Zef. Baudrillard's suggestion is to embrace the idea that there is no objective reality. In The Vital Illusion, he suggests that: "for, facing a world that is unintelligible and problematic, our task is clear: we must make that world even more unintelligible, even more enigmatic" ( 2000, p. The result of this hyperreality is "totally oppressive" and prescriptive, leaving little space for the enigmatic, as Baudrillard puts it: "the inaccessible secret" ( 1990, p. The aim of simulation is not to do away with reality, but on the contrary to realize it, to make it real" (Butler, 1999, p. Simulation as a strategy is "not only the loss of reality, but also its very possibility. Signs act to compensate (in fact to over-compensate) for this perceived lack of the "real thing". Instead, signs become substitutes for a reality that has become "hyperreal".Īs Baudrillard observes in the quote cited at the beginning of this paper, the perceived loss of reality is met with desperate attempts to cling to an "authentic" world which can be meaningfully and objectively determined.
Baudrillard argues that hyperreal spaces, like Disney World, compensate for a lack of reality ( 1983, p. As audiences of a Disney movie, for example, one (most likely) knows or can at least guess as to what the conclusion will be, an endorsement of the ideal as reality, if not compensation, for the lack of the ideal in reality. This indicates an absence of reality external to representation which is replaced by the "hyperreal", described by Baudrillard as a strategy of simulation, by "substituting the signs of the real for the real" ( 1983, p. Jean Baudrillard elaborates on this saturation of the sign in contemporary culture and describes his theory of "simulation" as the "liquidation of all referentials" ( 1983, p. Much of the experience of contemporary Western societies is to some extent characterised by this saturation of the sign. The sign, penetrated by capital, no longer represents its reference in reality, but rather refers to other signs. Whereas the index has a reference and origin, the sign does not the sign is unlimited in its references and can be bought and sold ( 1996, p. Hal Foster, interpreting Barthes, identifies a historical transformation of the sign in relation to the conversion from a feudal society to a bourgeois society, associating the latter with the sign and the former with the index ( 1996, p. Signs and codes are created through myths which in turn serve to sustain those myths. This naturalisation arising from myth making can also be described as a process of reification in which society forgets the part played in the construction of myth ( 1972, p. In Mythologies, Ronald Barthes discusses the manner in which signs become naturalised to represent popular myths: "things lose the memory that they once were made" ( 1972, p. There is a plethora of myths of origin and of signs of reality-a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity.
Die antwoord enter the ninja download full#
Introduction When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. Keywords: Die Antwoord myth simulation authenticity appropriation "Fatty Boom Boom"ġ. Subjects: Art & Visual Culture Arts Cultural Studies Humanities Media & Film Studies Music Performance Theory Practice and Practitioners Theatre & Performance Studies Visual Arts Drawing specifically from "Fatty Boom Boom", the analysis centres on how the band satirises exoticised myths surrounding South African life. Die Antwoord's lack of authenticity is investigated in relation to hip hop as well as the creation of a Zef counter-culture. I read Die Antwoord's performance as an embrace of simulation (via Jean Baudrillard) which destabilises myths regarding authenticity. This paper investigates how the band uses culture as a "found object" and albeit problematically, subverts static conceptions regarding South African life. Enter the imperceptible: Reading Die AntwoordĪbstract: Die Antwoord (The Answer), a Zef-rap outfit from South Africa, have been criticised for their appropriation of cultural signifiers in their lyrics and the images which come to fore in their music videos.