An aesthetic mode of reproduction or replication that strives to produce an effect that is more real than the real thing being copied. Italian author, semiotician, and cultural critic, Eco, Umberto, coined the term in an essay entitled ‘Travels in Hyperreality’ (1975) which tries to account for the particular attraction to Americans of waxwork museums, Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not!’, and the seemingly relentless replication of icons of European culture, such as Las Vegas’s mini Eiffel Tower. Somewhat snobbishly, Eco regards the logic behind such exhibitions as compensatory. For the lack of an authentic culture of its own, he argues, America creates pastiche of European culture. But because their inauthenticity cannot really be disguised, they strive to be more real than the original by trying to recall the affect of the presence of the original object. More generously, Baudrillard, Jean, in his account of simulation, sees the hyperreal as part of global shift in the way culture communicates itself.