The hologram performs surgery that extracts and kills the secret double

Evidence

The hologram, perfect image and end of the imaginary. Or rather, it is no longer an image at all - the real medium is the laser, concentrated light, quintessentialized, which is no longer a visible or reflexive light, but an abstract light of simulation. Laser/scalpel. A luminous surgery whose function here is that of the double: one operates on you to remove the double as one would operate to remove a tumor. The double that hid in the depths of you (of your body, of your unconscious?) and whose secret form fed precisely your imaginary, on the condition of remaining secret, is extracted by laser, is synthesized and materialized before you, just as it is possible for you to pass through and beyond it. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 357

Categorization

• DEFINE: Baudrillard equates the hologram/laser with a scalpel that excises the double — a precise image of simulation’s destructive operation.
• XREF: connects to: Surgical body transformation can produce a hated abandoned self that returns as a double — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 578; Materializing the phantasm of the double destroys its power — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 322

Broader Connections

• Materializing the phantasm of the double destroys its power #exemplifies (0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 322
• Surgical body transformation can produce a hated abandoned self that returns as a double #expands (0.82) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 578