Baudrillard and dissimulation of the natural

[berekluifje]

thanks

[The Voice of Time]

As has been observed by Baudrillard, representations of the model of production lend themselves as window to reveal the dissimulation of the natural.

let's take it piece by piece:

representations of the model of production

Does it indeed say "model" of production, or "mode of production"? Because a model is a model, and since this is a philosophy forum and not an architecture forum, you probably would know better then in case it says "model". However, a "mode of production" is a Marxist term for any specific "setup" of an economy, consisting of the way people relate to each other as parts of a total production process in for instance a national economy, the manner in which things are produced (tools and know-how), and so forth.

"Representations" seems to be a context sensitive word, so please offer some context for it, unless it's rather literally talking about a simulation of how to produce something, like in a computer simulation or a sketch of the procedures that will have to unfold.

lend themselves as window to reveal

Rather obviously this means "this gives us insight about/let's us see how it's like", so read that into the sub-sentence.

the dissimulation of the natural.

Here's the more non-obvious part. Dissimulation is a new word to me, so I looked it up (http://onelook.com/?w=dissimulation&ls=a), turns out to be rather straight forward however. One thing this sub-sentence can mean then is that the natural is imperfect, it is not "up there", like the ideal. However, I'd also be conscious of the context here, as "natural" can mean so widely many things to so many people, and especially when we are talking architecture this might have very specific meanings outside of ordinary language.

Another thing it could mean, is that it refers to the natural in the process that there might be talk of in the first part of the sentence (which I mentioned at first), and shows what is possible and what is not, namely a typical "hey, we looked through it, and it's just not doable dude, so you'll have to make some adjustments!". Like a check for errors, a check to see if it really can be built.