21st December- Research- The Conspiracy of Art by Jean Baudrillard
21st December- Research- The Conspiracy of Art by Jean Baudrillard
2005
Jean Baudrillard- Brief Background reading for context
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. Best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as simulation and hyperreality. He wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, gender relations, economics, social history, art, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his best known works are Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism.
The object value system
In his early books, such as The System of Objects, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, and The Consumer Society, Baudrillard's main focus is upon consumerism, and how different objects are consumed in differing ways. At this time Baudrillard's political outlook was partly associated with Marxism (and Situationism), but in these books he differed from Karl Marx in one significant way. For Baudrillard, as for the situationists, it was consumption rather than production that was the main driver of capitalist society.
Baudrillard came to this conclusion by criticising Marx's concept of "use-value". Baudrillard thought that both Marx's and Adam Smith's economic thought accepted the idea of genuine needs relating to genuine uses too easily and too simply. Baudrillard argued, drawing from Georges Bataille, that needs are constructed, rather than innate. He stressed that all purchases, because they always signify something socially, have their fetishistic side. Objects always, drawing from Roland Barthes, "say something" about their users. And this was, for him, why consumption was and remains more important than production: because the "ideological genesis of needs" precedes the production of goods to meet those needs.
He wrote that there are four ways of an object obtaining value. The four value-making processes are:
-The first is the functional value of an object; its instrumental purpose (use value). A pen, for instance, writes; a refrigerator cools.The last is the sign value of an object; its value within a system of objects. A particular pen may, while having no added functional benefit, signify prestige relative to another pen; a diamond ring may have no function at all, but may suggest particular social values, such as taste or class.
-The second is the exchange value of an object; its economic value. One pen may be worth three pencils; and one refrigerator may be worth the salary earned by three months of work.
-The third is the symbolic value of an object; a value that a subject assigns to an object in relation to another subject (i.e., between a giver and receiver). A pen might symbolize a student's school graduation gift or a commencement speaker's gift; or a diamond may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love.
Baudrillard's earlier books were attempts to argue that the first two of these values are not simply associated, but are disrupted by the third and, particularly, the fourth. Later, Baudrillard rejected Marxism totally (The Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death). But the focus on the difference between sign value (which relates to commodity exchange) and symbolic value (which relates to Maussian gift exchange) remained in his work up until his death. Indeed, it came to play a more and more important role, particularly in his writings on world events.
The end of history and meaning
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, one of Baudrillard's most common themes was historicity, or, more specifically, how present-day societies utilise the notions of progress and modernity in their political choices. He argued, much like the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, that history had ended or "vanished" with the spread of globalization; but, unlike Fukuyama, Baudrillard averred that this end should not be understood as the culmination of history's progress, but as the collapse of the very idea of historical progress. For Baudrillard, the end of the Cold War did not represent an ideological victory; rather, it signaled the disappearance of utopian visions shared between both the political Right and Left. Giving further evidence of his opposition toward Marxist visions of global communism and liberal visions of global civil society, Baudrillard contended that the ends they hoped for had always been illusions; indeed, as The Illusion of the End argues, he thought the idea of an end itself was nothing more than a misguided dream:
In making this argument Baudrillard found some affinity with the postmodern philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard, who famously argued that in the late 20th century there was no longer any room for "metanarratives". (The triumph of a coming communism being one such metanarrative.) But, in addition to simply lamenting this collapse of history, Baudrillard also went beyond Lyotard and attempted to analyse how the idea of forward progress was being employed in spite of the notion's declining validity. Baudrillard argued that although genuine belief in a universal endpoint of history, wherein all conflicts would find their resolution, had been deemed redundant, universality was still a notion utilised in world politics as an excuse for actions. Universal values which, according to him, no one any longer believed universal were and are still rhetorically employed to justify otherwise unjustifiable choices. The means, he wrote, are there even though the ends are no longer believed in, and are employed in order to hide the present's harsh realities (or, as he would have put it, unrealities). "In the Enlightenment, universalization was viewed as unlimited growth and forward progress. Today, by contrast, universalization is expressed as a forward escape."This involves the notion of "escape velocity" as outlined in The Vital Illusion (2000), which in turn, results in the postmodern fallacy of escape velocity on which the postmodern mind and critical view cannot, by definition, ever truly break free from the all-encompassing "self-referential" sphere of discourse.
Intro:
‘Baudrillard is a special kind of philosopher, especially in a country where ideologies come cheap and easy- what he does is no different from what he writes. He performs his philosophy, not just preaches it. He is a practicing artist of his own conceits.’ p17
‘Instead of bravely acknowledging its own insolence and questioning its own status, it is basking in its own self-importance.’ p19
The Introduction to this book is written by someone else and this helps ease I to the themes and writing style of the work. It gives it context to help understand about the text and the author. It is interesting to conceive the conspiracy of art and the ways the author has philosophised through living. I think this is something Wort reflection as my own practice tends to struggle with the ironies of art but then the desire to produce also. This text is pivotal and although not extensively used within my research paper, it gives a good base understanding for other critique of the art world which was taken both well and badly by different groups of people.
The conspiracy of art
‘But what could Art possibly mean I’m a world that has already become hyper-realistic, cool, transparent, marketable?’ p26
‘In any case, the dictatorship of images is an ironic dictatorship. It now belong to insider trading, the shameful and hidden complicity bonding the artist who uses his or her aura of derision against the bewildered and doubtful masses. Irony is also part of the conspiracy of art’ p26/27
‘They realise that they have been made victims of an abuse of power, that they have been denied access to the rules of the game and manipulated behind their backs. In other words, art has become involved (not only from the financial point of view of the art market, but in the very management of aesthetic value) in the general process of insider trading. Art is not alone: politics, economics, the news all benefit from the same complicity and ironic resignation from their ‘consumers’.’ p29
A conjugation of imbeciles 1997
‘We should be wary of the illusion of contamination that changes the positive into the negative virus and the demand for freedom into ‘democratic despotism’ merely through the transparency of evil. Rational intelligence never suspects the existence of this reversibility, the subtle twist of evil (despite all the things modern pathology has taught us a lot the physical body, we pay no attention to it for the social body.’ p34
Only way to overcome something is by ‘accepting our daemons’ p35
Although I didn’t fully understand all of this section’s references and discussions, specifically regarding Le Pen (of which I have a brief knowledge), I did manage to gather the aim and the outline of the text in terms of highlighting ironies and juxtapositions within politics. These, seemingly, are also found on the art world. It reminded me considerable of the way in which alternate views, commenters and concepts can be dismissed if they do not fit into the accepted academia surrounding art. There is an illusion around the art world which allows its functions to remain secular, as with politics. However, when challenges are presented or raised internally, as with right wing political concepts, they can be dismissed very quickly and swiftly but the stud quo. The social body here also is very Interesting as it is compared to the physical body, an Interface which I haven’t fully investigated but would likely offer parallels giving light to the frustrations surrounding ethical and moral production.
In the kingdom of the blind 2002
‘Well, it seems that the people are just enlightened enough to choose to remain indifferent to certain things and to avoid the mortal danger of being concerned by anything.’ p37
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, one of Baudrillard's most common themes was historicity, or, more specifically, how present-day societies utilise the notions of progress and modernity in their political choices. He argued, much like the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, that history had ended or "vanished" with the spread of globalization; but, unlike Fukuyama, Baudrillard averred that this end should not be understood as the culmination of history's progress, but as the collapse of the very idea of historical progress. For Baudrillard, the end of the Cold War did not represent an ideological victory; rather, it signaled the disappearance of utopian visions shared between both the political Right and Left. Giving further evidence of his opposition toward Marxist visions of global communism and liberal visions of global civil society, Baudrillard contended that the ends they hoped for had always been illusions; indeed, as The Illusion of the End argues, he thought the idea of an end itself was nothing more than a misguided dream:
The end of history is, alas, also the end of the dustbins of history. There are no longer any dustbins for disposing of old ideologies, old regimes, old values. Where are we going to throw Marxism, which actually invented the dustbins of history? (Yet there is some justice here since the very people who invented them have fallen in.) Conclusion: if there are no more dustbins of history, this is because History itself has become a dustbin. It has become its own dustbin, just as the planet itself is becoming its own dustbin.Within a society subject to and ruled by fast-paced electronic communication and global information networks the collapse of this façade was always going to be, he thought, inevitable. Employing a quasi-scientific vocabulary that attracted the ire of the physicist Alan Sokal, Baudrillard wrote that the speed society moved at had destabilized the linearity of history: "we have the particle accelerator that has smashed the referential orbit of things once and for all".
In making this argument Baudrillard found some affinity with the postmodern philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard, who famously argued that in the late 20th century there was no longer any room for "metanarratives". (The triumph of a coming communism being one such metanarrative.) But, in addition to simply lamenting this collapse of history, Baudrillard also went beyond Lyotard and attempted to analyse how the idea of forward progress was being employed in spite of the notion's declining validity. Baudrillard argued that although genuine belief in a universal endpoint of history, wherein all conflicts would find their resolution, had been deemed redundant, universality was still a notion utilised in world politics as an excuse for actions. Universal values which, according to him, no one any longer believed universal were and are still rhetorically employed to justify otherwise unjustifiable choices. The means, he wrote, are there even though the ends are no longer believed in, and are employed in order to hide the present's harsh realities (or, as he would have put it, unrealities). "In the Enlightenment, universalization was viewed as unlimited growth and forward progress. Today, by contrast, universalization is expressed as a forward escape."This involves the notion of "escape velocity" as outlined in The Vital Illusion (2000), which in turn, results in the postmodern fallacy of escape velocity on which the postmodern mind and critical view cannot, by definition, ever truly break free from the all-encompassing "self-referential" sphere of discourse.
Reflections/observations surrounding the Book
Introduction- The Piracy of art by Sylvere LotringerIntro:
‘Baudrillard is a special kind of philosopher, especially in a country where ideologies come cheap and easy- what he does is no different from what he writes. He performs his philosophy, not just preaches it. He is a practicing artist of his own conceits.’ p17
‘Instead of bravely acknowledging its own insolence and questioning its own status, it is basking in its own self-importance.’ p19
The Introduction to this book is written by someone else and this helps ease I to the themes and writing style of the work. It gives it context to help understand about the text and the author. It is interesting to conceive the conspiracy of art and the ways the author has philosophised through living. I think this is something Wort reflection as my own practice tends to struggle with the ironies of art but then the desire to produce also. This text is pivotal and although not extensively used within my research paper, it gives a good base understanding for other critique of the art world which was taken both well and badly by different groups of people.
The conspiracy of art
‘But what could Art possibly mean I’m a world that has already become hyper-realistic, cool, transparent, marketable?’ p26
‘In any case, the dictatorship of images is an ironic dictatorship. It now belong to insider trading, the shameful and hidden complicity bonding the artist who uses his or her aura of derision against the bewildered and doubtful masses. Irony is also part of the conspiracy of art’ p26/27
‘They realise that they have been made victims of an abuse of power, that they have been denied access to the rules of the game and manipulated behind their backs. In other words, art has become involved (not only from the financial point of view of the art market, but in the very management of aesthetic value) in the general process of insider trading. Art is not alone: politics, economics, the news all benefit from the same complicity and ironic resignation from their ‘consumers’.’ p29
A conjugation of imbeciles 1997
‘We should be wary of the illusion of contamination that changes the positive into the negative virus and the demand for freedom into ‘democratic despotism’ merely through the transparency of evil. Rational intelligence never suspects the existence of this reversibility, the subtle twist of evil (despite all the things modern pathology has taught us a lot the physical body, we pay no attention to it for the social body.’ p34
Only way to overcome something is by ‘accepting our daemons’ p35
Although I didn’t fully understand all of this section’s references and discussions, specifically regarding Le Pen (of which I have a brief knowledge), I did manage to gather the aim and the outline of the text in terms of highlighting ironies and juxtapositions within politics. These, seemingly, are also found on the art world. It reminded me considerable of the way in which alternate views, commenters and concepts can be dismissed if they do not fit into the accepted academia surrounding art. There is an illusion around the art world which allows its functions to remain secular, as with politics. However, when challenges are presented or raised internally, as with right wing political concepts, they can be dismissed very quickly and swiftly but the stud quo. The social body here also is very Interesting as it is compared to the physical body, an Interface which I haven’t fully investigated but would likely offer parallels giving light to the frustrations surrounding ethical and moral production.
In the kingdom of the blind 2002
‘Well, it seems that the people are just enlightened enough to choose to remain indifferent to certain things and to avoid the mortal danger of being concerned by anything.’ p37
Although written in 2002 there are parallels which can be drawn from this conclusion and applied to modern day. The idea of indifference is something which I have considered in my own work and research. An individual's personal worldview and values affects this indifference considerably. interestingly enough, the label of 'kingdom' struck me here as there is a prestige to that. An unfaltering view and hierarchy even though the kingdom may be blind. This seems to be a recurring theme in terms of negative writing. Alluding to a past greatness or pride which is no longer there, an empty shell maybe. These of course are just my own reflections on this however I think it would be an interesting thesis to develop.
‘The mora law of art had now disappeared. It is even more than democratic: it is in-differentiating.’ P45
Art between utopia and anticipation 1996
‘It is obvious that art already changes direction with the sudden and maybe seductive break I to abstraction. The passage through abstraction is a considerable event. It is the end of a system of representation, although probably not the end of art, on the contrary. I still see abstraction both as a complete renewal of things and as aberration. It is potentially dangerous for art to the extent that the aim of abstraction (and modernity in general£ is to move towards analytical exploration of the object, in other words, shedding the mask of figuration in order to find behind appearances an analytical truth for the object and for the world.’ p51
‘Corruption of art by science...’ p52
Focus on this chapter on art being waste and reproduction is really interesting. Touches on historicism and the ways that the last is used today in art when the same themes and morals are not applicable. There is a Disneyland effect which for me comes with the economic commodity. This chapter has been the most pictorial so far for me in recognising why these writings are and were so widely respected. Although, in that sense, for me to take them as gospel about art would be to prove the authors point on the crutches that modern art uses.
No nostalgia for old Aesthetic values 1996
‘I say that you should be able to apply the same critique to art as everything else.’ p62
La Commedia dell’Arte 1996
‘... are has no special privilege in relation to other systems of value’ p65
As I progress through this book O have learnt that i agree with the author on many levels and ideas. The same criticisms of western culture and culture in general. Also, the de-elevation of art to allow it to play by the same rules and ethics which the rest of the world should begin to consider.
To much is too much 2001
‘Art today is in denial of its own reality.’ p76
Illusions
Art... contemporary of itself 2003
‘Art, in its forms, signifies nothing. It is only a sign of absence.’ p93
Death of art/extinction of art being the full cycle of the art world. Self destruction being included when referring to ‘everything’.
Towards the vanishing point of art 1987
‘And art assumes all problems have been resolved, it is not even the solution to problems that have been resolved.’ p 98
In ways, I don’t agree with the above quote as art does not claim that all problems have been resolved, many works to aim to visually investigate the ways in which problems can be investigated. However I do agree that art doesn’t always suggest an alternative or pose solutions, there is often just a commentary.
Aesthetic Illusion and Disillusion 1995
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