+ JEAN BAUDRILLARD + +
++ There is no longer any system of objects. My first book contains a critique of + + the object as obvious fact, subtance, reality, use value.’ There the object + + was taken as sign, but as sign still heavy with meaning. In this critique two + + Principal logics interfered with each other: a phantasmatic logic that + + referred principally to psychoanalysis —its identifications, projections, + +
+ ++ and the entire imaginary realm of transcendence, power and sexuality oper- + +
+ ++ ating at the level of objects and the environment, with a privilege accorded + + to the house/automobile axis (immanence /transcendence); and a differen- + + tial social logic that made distinctions by referring to a sociology, itself + + derived from anthropology (consumption as the production of signs, differ- + +
+ ++ entiation, status and prestige). Behind these logics, in some way descriptive + +
+ ++ and analytic, there was already the dream of symbolic exchange, a dream of + + the status of the object and consumption beyond exchange and use, beyond + + value and equivalence. In other words, a sacrificial logic of consumption, + +
+ ++ gift, expenditure (dépense), potlatch, and the accursed portion? + +
++ In a certain way all this still exists, and yet in other respects it is all dis- + + appearing. The description of this whole intimate universe— projective, + + imaginary and symbolic—still corresponded to the object’s status as mirror + + of the subject, and that in turn to the imaginary depths of the mirror and + + “scene”: there is a domestic scene, a scene of interiority, a private space- + + time (correlative, moreover, to a public space). The oppositions subject/ + + object and public/private. were still meaningful. This was the era of the + + discovery and exploration of daily life, this other scene emerging in the + + shadow of the historic scene, with the former receiving more and more + + symbolic investment as the latter was pclitically disinvested. + +
+ ++ But today the scene an rror no loager exist; instead, there is a screen + + and network. In place of i seflexive transcendence of mirror and scene, + +
++ + +
++ + +
++ there is a nonreflecting surface, an immanent surface where operations + + unfold—the smooth operational surface of communication. + +
+ ++ Something has changed, and the Faustian, Promethean (perhaps Oedipal) + + period of production and consumption gives way to the “proteinic” era of + + networks, to the narcissistic and protean era of connections, contact, + + contiguity, feedback and generalized interface that goes with the universe of + + communication. With the television image—the television being the + + ultimate and perfect object for this new era—our own body and the whole + + surrounding universe become a control screen. + +
+ ++ If one thinks about it, people no longer project themselves into their + + objects, with their affects and their representations, their fantasies of + + possession, loss, mourning, jealousy: the psychological dimension has in a + + sense vanished, and even if it can always be marked out in detail, one feels + + that it is not really there that things are being played out. Roland Barthes + + already indicated this some time ago in regard to the automobile: little by + + little a logic of “driving” has replaced a very subjective logic of possession + + and projection No more fantasies of power, speed and appropriation linked + + to the object itself, but instead a tactic of potentialities linked to usage: + + mastery, control and command, an optimalization of the play of possibilities + + offered by the car as vector and vehicle, and no longer as object of psycho- + + logical sanctuary. The subject himself, suddenly transformed, becomes a + + computer at the wheel, not a drunken demiurge of power. The vehicle now + + becomes a kind of capsule, its dashboard the brain, the surrounding land- + + scape unfolding like a televised screen (instead of a live-in projectile as it + + was before). —_— + +
+ ++ (But we can conceive of a stage beyond this one, where the car is still a + + vehicle of performance, a stage where it becomes an information network. + + The famous Japanese car that talks to you, that “spontaneously” informs + + you of its general state and even of your general state, possibly refusing to + + function if you are not functioning well, the car as deliberating consultant + + and partner in the general negotiation of a lifestyle, something—or some- + + one: at this point there is no longer any difference— with which you are + + connected. The fundamental issue becomes the communication with the car + + itself, a perpetual test of the subject’s presence with his own objects, an + + uninterrupted interface. + +
+ ++ it is easy to see that from this point speed and displacement no longer + + matter. Neither does unconscious projection, nor an individual or social type + + of competition, nor prestige. Besides, the car began to be de-sacralized in + + this sense some time ago: it’s all over with speed—I drive more and + + consume less. Now, however, it is an ecological ideal that installs itself at + + every level. No more expenditure, consumption, performance, but instead + + regulation, well-tempered functionality, solidarity among all the elements + + of the same system, control and global management of an ensemble. Each + + system, including no doubt the domestic universe, forms a sort of ecological + + niche where the essential thing is to maintain a relational decor, where all the + + terms must continually communicate among themselves and stay in contact, + + informed of the respective condition of the others and of the system as a + + whole, where opacity, resistance or the secrecy of a single term can lead + + to catastrophe.) * + +
+ ++ Private “telematics”: each person sees himself at the controls of a hypo- + + thetical machine, isolated in a position of perfect and remote sovereignty, at + + an infinite distance from his universe of origin. Which is to say, in the exact + + position of an astronaut in his capsule, in a state of weightlessness that + + necessitates a perpetual orbital flight and a speed sufficient to keep him from + + crashing back to his planet of origin. + +
+ ++ This realization of a living satellite, in vivo in a quotidian space, corre- + + sponds to the satellitization of the real, or what I call the “hyperrealism of + + simulation” *: the elevation of the domestic universe to a spatial power, to a + + spatial metaphor, with the satellitization of the two-room-kitchen-and-bath + + put into orbit in the last lunar module. The very quotidian nature of the + + terrestrial habitat hypostasized in space means the end of metaphysics. The + + era of hyperreality now begins. What I mean is this: what was projected + + psychologically and mentally, what used to be lived out on earth as + + metaphor, as mental or metaphorical scene, is henceforth projected into + + reality, without any metaphor at all, into an absolute space which is also that + + of sizaulation. + +
++ AIR te ee ee hee te ele te en dn een nnn twin hls + +
++ dbjects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Pare de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they will be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. tis our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on Prench television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle§ + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + +
++ cross even if one leaves the main highways), as soon as all events are + + epitomized in the towns, themselves undergoing reduction to a few minia- + + turized highlights. And time: what can be said about this immense free time + + we are left with, a dimension henceforth useless in its unfolding, as soon as + + the instantaneity of communication has miniaturized our exchanges into a + +
++ succession of instants? + +
++ Thus the body, landscape, time all progressively disappear as scenes. And + + the same for public space: the theater of the social and theater of politics are + + both reduced more and more to a large soft body with many heads. Adver- + + tising in its new version—which is no longer a more or less baroque, + + utopian or ecstatic scenario of objects and consumption, but the effect of an + + omnipresent visibility of enterprises, brands, social interlocuters and the + + social virtues of communication— advertising in its new dimension invades + + everything, as public space (the street, monument, market, scene) dis- + + appears. It realizes, or, if one prefers, it materializes in all its obscenity; it + + monopolizes public life in its exhibition. No longer limited to its traditional + + language, advertising organizes the architecture and realization of super- + + objects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Pare de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they will be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. It is our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (ali the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle ® + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + + functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, + + their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their + + branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... . + +
+ ++ it is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, + + forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the + + all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of + + what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information. + + and communication. + +
+ ++ Marx set forth and denounced the obscenity of the commodity, and this + + obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principle of free circu- + + lation, beyond all use value of the object. The obscenity of the commodity + + stems from the fact that it is abstract, formal and light in opposition to the + + weight, opacity and substance of the object. The commodity is readable: in + + opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the + + commodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the + + formal place of transcription of all possible objects; through it, objects + + communicate. Hence, the commodity form is the first great medium of the + + modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already + + extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus + + at bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes + + itself in its pure circulation. This is what I call (potentially) ecstasy. + +
+ ++ One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or + + third power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of + + communication, which leaves far behind it those relative analyses of the + + universe of the commodity. Ail functions abolished in a single dimension, + + that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, + + spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s + + obscenity. + +
+ ++ The hot, sexual obscenity of former times is succeeded by the cold and + + communicational, contactual and motivational obscenity of today. The + + former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the + + body’s viscera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private + + universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression. + + Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns + + over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an + + incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective + + spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal + + network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of every- + + thing that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sings, it + + expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In + + terms a little different for each medium, this is the result: a space, that of the + + FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to + + the point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all). Something that + + objects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Parc de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they will be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. It is our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle ® + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene, Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ ‘We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + + functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, + + their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their + + branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... + +
+ ++ it is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, + + forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the + + all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of + + what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information + + and communication. + +
+ ++ Marx set forth and denounced the obscenity of the commodity, and this + + obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principle of free circu- + + lation, beyond all use value of the object. The obscenity of the commodity + + stems from the fact that it is abstract, formal and light in opposition to the + + weight, opacity and substance of the object. The commodity is readable: in + + opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the + + commodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the + + formal place of transcription of all possible objects; through it, objects + + communicate. Hence, the commodity form is the first great medium of the + + modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already + + extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus + + at bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes + + itself in its pure circulation. This is what I call (potentially) ecstasy. + +
+ ++ One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or + + third power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of + + communication, which leaves far behind it those relative analyses of the + + universe of the commodity. All functions abolished in a single dimension, + + that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, + + spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s + + obscenity. + +
+ ++ The hot, sexual obscenity of former times is succeeded by the cold and + + communicational, contactual and motivational obscenity of today. The + + former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the + + body’s viscera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private + + universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression. + + Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns + + over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an + + incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective + + spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal + + network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of every- + + thing that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sings, it + + expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In + + terms a little different for each medium, this is the result: a space, that of the + + FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to + + the point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all). Something that + + objects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Parc de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they wili be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. It is our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumet + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle ® + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ ‘We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + +
++ functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, + + their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their + + branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... . + +
+ ++ It is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, + + forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the + + all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of + + what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information + + and communication. + +
+ ++ Marx set forth and denounced the obscenity of the commodity, and this + + obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principle of free circu- + + lation, beyond all use value of the object. The obscenity of the commodity + + stems from the fact that it is abstract, formal and light in opposition to the + + weight, opacity and substance of the object. The commodity is readable: in + + opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the + + commodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the + + formal place of transcription of all possible objects; through it, objects + + communicate. Hence, the commodity form is the first great medium of the + + modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already + + extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus + + at bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes + + itself in its pure circulation. This is what I call (potentially) ecstasy. + +
+ ++ One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or + + third power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of + + communication, which leaves far behind it those relative analyses of the + + universe of the commodity. Ail functions abolished in a single dimension, + + that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, + + spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s + + obscenity. + +
+ ++ The hot, sexual obscenity of former times is succeeded by the cold and + + communicational, contactual and motivational obscenity of today. The + + former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the + + body’s viscera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private + + universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression. + + Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns + + over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an + + incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective + + spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal + + network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of every- + + thing that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sings, it + + expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In + + terms a little different for each medium, this is the result: a space, that of the + + FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to + + the point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all). Something that + +
++ was free by virtue of space is no longer. Speech is free perhaps, but I am less + + free than before: I no longer succeed in knowing what I want, the space is so + + saturated , the pressure so great from all who want to make themselves heard. + +
+ ++ I fall into the negative ecstasy of the radio. + +
+ ++ There is in effect a state of fascination and vertigo linked to this obscene + + delirium of communication. A singular form of pleasure perhaps, but alea- + + tory and dizzying. If we follow Roger Caillois” in his classiication of games + + {it’s as good as any other)—games of expression (mimicry), games of + + competition (agon), games of chance (alea), games of vertigo (ilynx)-— the + + whole tendency of our contemporary “culture” would lead us from a + + relative disappearance of forms of expression and competition (as we have + + remarked at the level of objects) to the advantages of forms of risk and + + vertigo. The latter no longer involve games of scene, mirror, challenge and + + duality; they are, rather, ecstatic, solitary and narcissistic. The pleasure is no + + longer one of manifestation, scenic and aesthetic, but rather one of pure + + fascination, aleatory and psychotropic. This is not necessarily a negative + + value judgment: here surely there is an original and profound mutation of the + + very forms of perception and pleasure. We are still measuring the conse- + + quences poorly. Wanting to apply our old criteria and the reflexes of a + + “scenic” sensibility, we no doubt misapprehend what may be the occur + + rence, in this sensory sphere, of something new, ecstatic and obscene. + +
+ ++ One thing is sure: the scene excites us, the obscene fascinates us. With + + fascination and ecstasy, passion disappears. Investment, desire, passion, + + seduction or again, according to Caillois, expression and competition— the + + hot universe. Ecstasy, obscenity, fascination, communication or again, + + according to Caillois, hazard, chance and vertigo—the cold universe (even + + vertigo is cold, the psychedelic one of drugs in particular). + +
++ on + + In any case, we will have to suffer this new state of things, this forced + + extroversion of all interiority, this forced injection of all exteriority that the + + categorical imperative of communication literally signifies. There also, one + + can perhaps make use of the old metaphors of pathology. If hysteria was the + + pathology of the exacerbated staging of the subject, a pathology of expres- + + sion, of the body’s theatrical and operatic conversion; and if paranoia was + + the pathology of organization, of the structuration of a rigid and jealous + + world; then with communication and information, with the immanent prom- + + iscuity of all these networks, with their continual connections, we are now in + + a new form of schizophrenia. No more hysteria, no more projective para- + + noia, properly speaking, but this state of terror proper to the schizophrenic: + + too great a proximity of everything, the unclean promiscuity of everything + + which touches, invests and penetrates without resistance, with no halo of + + private protection, not even his own body, to protect him anymore. + +
++ The schizo is bereft of every scene, open to everything in spite of himself, + + liviag in the greatest confusion. He is himself obscene, the obscene prey of + + the world’s obscenity. What characterizes him is less the loss of the real, the + + light years of estrangement from the real, the pathos of distance and radical + + separation, as is commonly said: but, very much to the contrary, the absolute + + proximity, the total instantaneity of things, the feeling of no defense, no + + retreat. It is the end of interiority and intimacy, the overexposure and + + transparence of the world which traverses him without obstacle. He can no + + longer produce the limits of his own being, can no longer play nor stage + + himself, can no longer produce himself as mirror. He is now only a pure + + screen, a switching center for all the networks of influence. + +
++ Translated by John Johnston + +
++ References + +
++ 1. Le Systéme des objets (Paris: Gallimard, 1968). [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 2. Baudrillard is alluding here to Marcel Mauss’s theory of gift exchange and Georges + + Bataille’s notion of dépense. The “accursed portion” in the latter’s theory refers to what- + + ever remains outside of society’s rationalized economy of exchanges. See Bataille, La Part + + Maudite (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1949). Baudrillard’s own conception of symbolic + + exchange, as a form of interaction that lies outside of modern Western society and that + + therefore “haunts it like its own death,” is developed in his 7 échange symbolique et la mort + + (Paris: Gallimard, 1976). [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 3. See Roland Barthes, “The New Citroén,” Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: + + Hill and Wang, 1972), pp. 88-90. [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 4. Two observations. First, this is not due alone to the passage, as one wants to call it, froma + + society of abundance and surplus to a society of crisis and penury (economic reasons have + + never been worth véry much). Just as the effect of consumption was not linked to the use + + value of things nor to their abundance, but precisely to the passage from use value to sign + + value, so here there is something new that is not linked to the end of abundance. + +
+ ++ Secondly, all this does not mean that the domestic universe—the home, its objects, + + etc.— is not still lived largely in a traditional way —-social, psychological, differential, etc. + + It means rather that the stakes are no longer there, that another arrangement or life-style is + + virtually in place, even if it is indicated only through a technologistical discourse which is + + often simply a political gadget. But it is crucial to see that the analysis that one could make of + + objects and their system in the '60s and ’70s essentially began with the language of adver- + + tising and the pseudo-conceptual discourse of the expert. “Consumption,” the “strategy of + + desire,” etc, were first only a metadiscourse, the analysis of a projective myth whose actual + + effect was never really known. How people actually live with their objects—at bottom, one + + knows no more about this than about the truth of primitive societies. That’s why it is often + + problematic and useless to want to verify (statistically, objectively) these hypotheses, as one + + ought to be able to do as a good sociologist. As we know, the language of advertising is first + + for the use of the advertisers themselves. Nothing says that contemporary discourse on + + computer science and communication is not for the use alone of professionals in these fields. + + (As for the discourse of intellectuals and sociologists themselves . . .) + +
++ 5. For an expanded explanation of this idea, see Baudrillard’s essay “La précession des + + simulacres,” Simulacres et Simulation (Paris: Galilée, 1981). An English translation + + appears in Simulations (New York: Foreign Agent Series, Semiotext(e) Publications, + + 1983). [Tr.] . + +
+ ++ 6. Areference to Guy Debord's La société du spectacle (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1968). [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 7. Roger Caillois, Les jeux et les hommes (Paris: Gallimard, 1958). [Tr.] + +
++ JEAN BAUDRILLARD + +
++ There is no longer any system of objects. My first book contains a critique of + + the object as obvious fact, subtance, reality, use value.’ There the object + + was taken as sign, but as sign still heavy with meaning. In this critique two + + Principal logics interfered with each other: a phantasmatic logic that + + referred principally to psychoanalysis —its identifications, projections, + +
+ ++ and the entire imaginary realm of transcendence, power and sexuality oper- + +
+ ++ ating at the level of objects and the environment, with a privilege accorded + + to the house/automobile axis (immanence /transcendence); and a differen- + + tial social logic that made distinctions by referring to a sociology, itself + + derived from anthropology (consumption as the production of signs, differ- + +
+ ++ entiation, status and prestige). Behind these logics, in some way descriptive + +
+ ++ and analytic, there was already the dream of symbolic exchange, a dream of + + the status of the object and consumption beyond exchange and use, beyond + + value and equivalence. In other words, a sacrificial logic of consumption, + +
+ ++ gift, expenditure (dépense), potlatch, and the accursed portion? + +
++ In a certain way all this still exists, and yet in other respects it is all dis- + + appearing. The description of this whole intimate universe— projective, + + imaginary and symbolic—still corresponded to the object’s status as mirror + + of the subject, and that in turn to the imaginary depths of the mirror and + + “scene”: there is a domestic scene, a scene of interiority, a private space- + + time (correlative, moreover, to a public space). The oppositions subject/ + + object and public/private. were still meaningful. This was the era of the + + discovery and exploration of daily life, this other scene emerging in the + + shadow of the historic scene, with the former receiving more and more + + symbolic investment as the latter was pclitically disinvested. + +
+ ++ But today the scene an rror no loager exist; instead, there is a screen + + and network. In place of i seflexive transcendence of mirror and scene, + +
++ + +
++ + +
++ there is a nonreflecting surface, an immanent surface where operations + + unfold—the smooth operational surface of communication. + +
+ ++ Something has changed, and the Faustian, Promethean (perhaps Oedipal) + + period of production and consumption gives way to the “proteinic” era of + + networks, to the narcissistic and protean era of connections, contact, + + contiguity, feedback and generalized interface that goes with the universe of + + communication. With the television image—the television being the + + ultimate and perfect object for this new era—our own body and the whole + + surrounding universe become a control screen. + +
+ ++ If one thinks about it, people no longer project themselves into their + + objects, with their affects and their representations, their fantasies of + + possession, loss, mourning, jealousy: the psychological dimension has in a + + sense vanished, and even if it can always be marked out in detail, one feels + + that it is not really there that things are being played out. Roland Barthes + + already indicated this some time ago in regard to the automobile: little by + + little a logic of “driving” has replaced a very subjective logic of possession + + and projection No more fantasies of power, speed and appropriation linked + + to the object itself, but instead a tactic of potentialities linked to usage: + + mastery, control and command, an optimalization of the play of possibilities + + offered by the car as vector and vehicle, and no longer as object of psycho- + + logical sanctuary. The subject himself, suddenly transformed, becomes a + + computer at the wheel, not a drunken demiurge of power. The vehicle now + + becomes a kind of capsule, its dashboard the brain, the surrounding land- + + scape unfolding like a televised screen (instead of a live-in projectile as it + + was before). —_— + +
+ ++ (But we can conceive of a stage beyond this one, where the car is still a + + vehicle of performance, a stage where it becomes an information network. + + The famous Japanese car that talks to you, that “spontaneously” informs + + you of its general state and even of your general state, possibly refusing to + + function if you are not functioning well, the car as deliberating consultant + + and partner in the general negotiation of a lifestyle, something—or some- + + one: at this point there is no longer any difference— with which you are + + connected. The fundamental issue becomes the communication with the car + + itself, a perpetual test of the subject’s presence with his own objects, an + + uninterrupted interface. + +
+ ++ it is easy to see that from this point speed and displacement no longer + + matter. Neither does unconscious projection, nor an individual or social type + + of competition, nor prestige. Besides, the car began to be de-sacralized in + + this sense some time ago: it’s all over with speed—I drive more and + + consume less. Now, however, it is an ecological ideal that installs itself at + + every level. No more expenditure, consumption, performance, but instead + + regulation, well-tempered functionality, solidarity among all the elements + + of the same system, control and global management of an ensemble. Each + + system, including no doubt the domestic universe, forms a sort of ecological + + niche where the essential thing is to maintain a relational decor, where all the + + terms must continually communicate among themselves and stay in contact, + + informed of the respective condition of the others and of the system as a + + whole, where opacity, resistance or the secrecy of a single term can lead + + to catastrophe.) * + +
+ ++ Private “telematics”: each person sees himself at the controls of a hypo- + + thetical machine, isolated in a position of perfect and remote sovereignty, at + + an infinite distance from his universe of origin. Which is to say, in the exact + + position of an astronaut in his capsule, in a state of weightlessness that + + necessitates a perpetual orbital flight and a speed sufficient to keep him from + + crashing back to his planet of origin. + +
+ ++ This realization of a living satellite, in vivo in a quotidian space, corre- + + sponds to the satellitization of the real, or what I call the “hyperrealism of + + simulation” *: the elevation of the domestic universe to a spatial power, to a + + spatial metaphor, with the satellitization of the two-room-kitchen-and-bath + + put into orbit in the last lunar module. The very quotidian nature of the + + terrestrial habitat hypostasized in space means the end of metaphysics. The + + era of hyperreality now begins. What I mean is this: what was projected + + psychologically and mentally, what used to be lived out on earth as + + metaphor, as mental or metaphorical scene, is henceforth projected into + + reality, without any metaphor at all, into an absolute space which is also that + + of sizaulation. + +
++ AIR te ee ee hee te ele te en dn een nnn twin hls + +
++ dbjects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Pare de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they will be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. tis our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on Prench television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle§ + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + +
++ cross even if one leaves the main highways), as soon as all events are + + epitomized in the towns, themselves undergoing reduction to a few minia- + + turized highlights. And time: what can be said about this immense free time + + we are left with, a dimension henceforth useless in its unfolding, as soon as + + the instantaneity of communication has miniaturized our exchanges into a + +
++ succession of instants? + +
++ Thus the body, landscape, time all progressively disappear as scenes. And + + the same for public space: the theater of the social and theater of politics are + + both reduced more and more to a large soft body with many heads. Adver- + + tising in its new version—which is no longer a more or less baroque, + + utopian or ecstatic scenario of objects and consumption, but the effect of an + + omnipresent visibility of enterprises, brands, social interlocuters and the + + social virtues of communication— advertising in its new dimension invades + + everything, as public space (the street, monument, market, scene) dis- + + appears. It realizes, or, if one prefers, it materializes in all its obscenity; it + + monopolizes public life in its exhibition. No longer limited to its traditional + + language, advertising organizes the architecture and realization of super- + + objects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Pare de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they will be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. It is our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (ali the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle ® + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + + functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, + + their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their + + branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... . + +
+ ++ it is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, + + forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the + + all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of + + what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information. + + and communication. + +
+ ++ Marx set forth and denounced the obscenity of the commodity, and this + + obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principle of free circu- + + lation, beyond all use value of the object. The obscenity of the commodity + + stems from the fact that it is abstract, formal and light in opposition to the + + weight, opacity and substance of the object. The commodity is readable: in + + opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the + + commodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the + + formal place of transcription of all possible objects; through it, objects + + communicate. Hence, the commodity form is the first great medium of the + + modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already + + extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus + + at bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes + + itself in its pure circulation. This is what I call (potentially) ecstasy. + +
+ ++ One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or + + third power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of + + communication, which leaves far behind it those relative analyses of the + + universe of the commodity. Ail functions abolished in a single dimension, + + that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, + + spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s + + obscenity. + +
+ ++ The hot, sexual obscenity of former times is succeeded by the cold and + + communicational, contactual and motivational obscenity of today. The + + former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the + + body’s viscera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private + + universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression. + + Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns + + over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an + + incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective + + spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal + + network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of every- + + thing that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sings, it + + expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In + + terms a little different for each medium, this is the result: a space, that of the + + FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to + + the point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all). Something that + + objects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Parc de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they will be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. It is our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle ® + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene, Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ ‘We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + + functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, + + their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their + + branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... + +
+ ++ it is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, + + forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the + + all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of + + what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information + + and communication. + +
+ ++ Marx set forth and denounced the obscenity of the commodity, and this + + obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principle of free circu- + + lation, beyond all use value of the object. The obscenity of the commodity + + stems from the fact that it is abstract, formal and light in opposition to the + + weight, opacity and substance of the object. The commodity is readable: in + + opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the + + commodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the + + formal place of transcription of all possible objects; through it, objects + + communicate. Hence, the commodity form is the first great medium of the + + modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already + + extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus + + at bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes + + itself in its pure circulation. This is what I call (potentially) ecstasy. + +
+ ++ One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or + + third power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of + + communication, which leaves far behind it those relative analyses of the + + universe of the commodity. All functions abolished in a single dimension, + + that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, + + spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s + + obscenity. + +
+ ++ The hot, sexual obscenity of former times is succeeded by the cold and + + communicational, contactual and motivational obscenity of today. The + + former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the + + body’s viscera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private + + universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression. + + Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns + + over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an + + incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective + + spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal + + network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of every- + + thing that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sings, it + + expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In + + terms a little different for each medium, this is the result: a space, that of the + + FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to + + the point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all). Something that + + objects like Beaubourg and the Forum des Halles, and of future projects + + (e.g., Parc de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to + + advertising, not because they wili be geared to consumption but because + + they are immediately proposed as an anticipated demonstration of the + + operation of culture, commodities, mass movement and social flux. It is our + + only architecture today: great screens on which are reflected atoms, + + particles, molecules in motion. Not a public scene or true public space but + + gigantic spaces of circulation, ventilation and ephemeral connections. + +
++ It is the same for private space. In a subtle way, this loss of public space + + occurs contemporaneously with the loss of private space. The one is no + + longer a spectacle, the other no longer a secret. Their distinctive opposition, + + the clear difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the + + domestic scene of objects, with its rules of play and limits, and the + + sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this + + opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate + + processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the + + Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or + + patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to + + unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that + + comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the + + universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): + + all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of + + public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, + + according to a secret ritual known only by the actors. + +
+ ++ Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa- + + rated you from others—or from the world, where it was invested as a + + protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also + + reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exists, + + and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumet + + society lived also under the sign of alienation, as a society of the spectacle ® + + But just so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It + + is not obscenity—the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins + + precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes + + transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the + + harsh and inexorable light of information and communication. + +
+ ++ ‘We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of + + communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does + + away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end + + to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in + + pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com- + + munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all + +
++ functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, + + their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their + + branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... . + +
+ ++ It is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, + + forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the + + all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of + + what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information + + and communication. + +
+ ++ Marx set forth and denounced the obscenity of the commodity, and this + + obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principle of free circu- + + lation, beyond all use value of the object. The obscenity of the commodity + + stems from the fact that it is abstract, formal and light in opposition to the + + weight, opacity and substance of the object. The commodity is readable: in + + opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the + + commodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the + + formal place of transcription of all possible objects; through it, objects + + communicate. Hence, the commodity form is the first great medium of the + + modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already + + extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus + + at bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes + + itself in its pure circulation. This is what I call (potentially) ecstasy. + +
+ ++ One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or + + third power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of + + communication, which leaves far behind it those relative analyses of the + + universe of the commodity. Ail functions abolished in a single dimension, + + that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, + + spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s + + obscenity. + +
+ ++ The hot, sexual obscenity of former times is succeeded by the cold and + + communicational, contactual and motivational obscenity of today. The + + former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the + + body’s viscera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private + + universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression. + + Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns + + over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an + + incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective + + spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal + + network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of every- + + thing that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sings, it + + expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In + + terms a little different for each medium, this is the result: a space, that of the + + FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to + + the point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all). Something that + +
++ was free by virtue of space is no longer. Speech is free perhaps, but I am less + + free than before: I no longer succeed in knowing what I want, the space is so + + saturated , the pressure so great from all who want to make themselves heard. + +
+ ++ I fall into the negative ecstasy of the radio. + +
+ ++ There is in effect a state of fascination and vertigo linked to this obscene + + delirium of communication. A singular form of pleasure perhaps, but alea- + + tory and dizzying. If we follow Roger Caillois” in his classiication of games + + {it’s as good as any other)—games of expression (mimicry), games of + + competition (agon), games of chance (alea), games of vertigo (ilynx)-— the + + whole tendency of our contemporary “culture” would lead us from a + + relative disappearance of forms of expression and competition (as we have + + remarked at the level of objects) to the advantages of forms of risk and + + vertigo. The latter no longer involve games of scene, mirror, challenge and + + duality; they are, rather, ecstatic, solitary and narcissistic. The pleasure is no + + longer one of manifestation, scenic and aesthetic, but rather one of pure + + fascination, aleatory and psychotropic. This is not necessarily a negative + + value judgment: here surely there is an original and profound mutation of the + + very forms of perception and pleasure. We are still measuring the conse- + + quences poorly. Wanting to apply our old criteria and the reflexes of a + + “scenic” sensibility, we no doubt misapprehend what may be the occur + + rence, in this sensory sphere, of something new, ecstatic and obscene. + +
+ ++ One thing is sure: the scene excites us, the obscene fascinates us. With + + fascination and ecstasy, passion disappears. Investment, desire, passion, + + seduction or again, according to Caillois, expression and competition— the + + hot universe. Ecstasy, obscenity, fascination, communication or again, + + according to Caillois, hazard, chance and vertigo—the cold universe (even + + vertigo is cold, the psychedelic one of drugs in particular). + +
++ on + + In any case, we will have to suffer this new state of things, this forced + + extroversion of all interiority, this forced injection of all exteriority that the + + categorical imperative of communication literally signifies. There also, one + + can perhaps make use of the old metaphors of pathology. If hysteria was the + + pathology of the exacerbated staging of the subject, a pathology of expres- + + sion, of the body’s theatrical and operatic conversion; and if paranoia was + + the pathology of organization, of the structuration of a rigid and jealous + + world; then with communication and information, with the immanent prom- + + iscuity of all these networks, with their continual connections, we are now in + + a new form of schizophrenia. No more hysteria, no more projective para- + + noia, properly speaking, but this state of terror proper to the schizophrenic: + + too great a proximity of everything, the unclean promiscuity of everything + + which touches, invests and penetrates without resistance, with no halo of + + private protection, not even his own body, to protect him anymore. + +
++ The schizo is bereft of every scene, open to everything in spite of himself, + + liviag in the greatest confusion. He is himself obscene, the obscene prey of + + the world’s obscenity. What characterizes him is less the loss of the real, the + + light years of estrangement from the real, the pathos of distance and radical + + separation, as is commonly said: but, very much to the contrary, the absolute + + proximity, the total instantaneity of things, the feeling of no defense, no + + retreat. It is the end of interiority and intimacy, the overexposure and + + transparence of the world which traverses him without obstacle. He can no + + longer produce the limits of his own being, can no longer play nor stage + + himself, can no longer produce himself as mirror. He is now only a pure + + screen, a switching center for all the networks of influence. + +
++ Translated by John Johnston + +
++ References + +
++ 1. Le Systéme des objets (Paris: Gallimard, 1968). [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 2. Baudrillard is alluding here to Marcel Mauss’s theory of gift exchange and Georges + + Bataille’s notion of dépense. The “accursed portion” in the latter’s theory refers to what- + + ever remains outside of society’s rationalized economy of exchanges. See Bataille, La Part + + Maudite (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1949). Baudrillard’s own conception of symbolic + + exchange, as a form of interaction that lies outside of modern Western society and that + + therefore “haunts it like its own death,” is developed in his 7 échange symbolique et la mort + + (Paris: Gallimard, 1976). [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 3. See Roland Barthes, “The New Citroén,” Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: + + Hill and Wang, 1972), pp. 88-90. [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 4. Two observations. First, this is not due alone to the passage, as one wants to call it, froma + + society of abundance and surplus to a society of crisis and penury (economic reasons have + + never been worth véry much). Just as the effect of consumption was not linked to the use + + value of things nor to their abundance, but precisely to the passage from use value to sign + + value, so here there is something new that is not linked to the end of abundance. + +
+ ++ Secondly, all this does not mean that the domestic universe—the home, its objects, + + etc.— is not still lived largely in a traditional way —-social, psychological, differential, etc. + + It means rather that the stakes are no longer there, that another arrangement or life-style is + + virtually in place, even if it is indicated only through a technologistical discourse which is + + often simply a political gadget. But it is crucial to see that the analysis that one could make of + + objects and their system in the '60s and ’70s essentially began with the language of adver- + + tising and the pseudo-conceptual discourse of the expert. “Consumption,” the “strategy of + + desire,” etc, were first only a metadiscourse, the analysis of a projective myth whose actual + + effect was never really known. How people actually live with their objects—at bottom, one + + knows no more about this than about the truth of primitive societies. That’s why it is often + + problematic and useless to want to verify (statistically, objectively) these hypotheses, as one + + ought to be able to do as a good sociologist. As we know, the language of advertising is first + + for the use of the advertisers themselves. Nothing says that contemporary discourse on + + computer science and communication is not for the use alone of professionals in these fields. + + (As for the discourse of intellectuals and sociologists themselves . . .) + +
++ 5. For an expanded explanation of this idea, see Baudrillard’s essay “La précession des + + simulacres,” Simulacres et Simulation (Paris: Galilée, 1981). An English translation + + appears in Simulations (New York: Foreign Agent Series, Semiotext(e) Publications, + + 1983). [Tr.] . + +
+ ++ 6. Areference to Guy Debord's La société du spectacle (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1968). [Tr.] + +
+ ++ 7. Roger Caillois, Les jeux et les hommes (Paris: Gallimard, 1958). [Tr.] + +
+