The Four Stages of the Sign (Guitar)

digital / PNG, 464×582 / meme / origin unverified / accessioned / catalogued curio

The object before the record.

FI-EPH-412 — The Four Stages of the Sign (Guitar)
FI-EPH-412 / The Four Stages of the Sign (Guitar) / source photograph 01

Evidence, relevance, and unresolved state.

Custody record

Logged 2026-09-26 / quantity 1 digital image. 1 source asset reference registered.

What is known

Found image supplied for The Shadow Zone: a four-row meme pairing Baudrillard's stages of simulacra with guitar notation. A photo of a hand fretting a chord sits beside "Stage One... a reflection of basic reality"; a chord diagram beside "Stage Two... masks a basic reality"; a tablature staff beside "Stage Three... marks the absence of basic reality"; and a treble-clef chord in standard notation beside "Stage Four... its own pure simulacrum." The bottom line is cropped. The quotations are reproduced as found. Maker, origin, and date are not recorded. The exif scrub reported no location metadata to strip.

Why it remains connected

accessioned / catalogued curio. Disposition: archive. The object remains associated with The Shadow Zone.

What remains unresolved

digital / PNG, 464×582 / meme / origin unverified. accessioned / catalogued curio. Terms marked unknown, provisional, pending, or unverified remain part of the record until evidence resolves them.

Keep the object connected.

The Shadow Zone

A holding zone for surreal found media and uncanny artifacts that surface around the archive — images with no clear origin, kept as evidence of the culture that accretes on forgotten machines.

Associated dossier / FI-PROJ-010 / open

Source Assets / 1 reference

Raw archive paths are retained for provenance and maintenance. They are not the primary object presentation.

  1. assets/ephemera/shadow-zone/fi-eph-412-guitar-simulacrum-stages.png Open local asset