JEAN BAUDRILLARD Jean Baudrillard The Disappearance of Art and Politics Edited by WILLIAM STEARNS and WILLIAM CHALOUPKA © William Stearns and William Chaloupka 1992 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1992 by MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Jean Baudrillard : the clisappearance of art and politics. 1. Culture. Postmodernism I. Stearns, William II. Chaloupka, William 306.20 ISBN 978-1-349-21846-2 ISBN 978-1-349-21844-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21844-8 8765432 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 This book is dedicated to the University of Montana community, whose members so fully encouraged this project. Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Contributors X Introduction: Baudrillard in the Mountains 1 William Stearns and William Chaloupka PART I MISE-EN SCENE Transpolitics, Transsexuality, Transaesthetics 9 Jean Baudrillard What Do Cyborgs Want? (Paris, Suburb of the Twentieth Century) 27 Ron Silliman Hyperreal 38 Sylvere Lotringer America's Century or There's Baudrillard Inside Every American, Just Struggling to Get Out 43 Arthur and Marilouise Kraker PART II SIMULATION IN THE AGE OF REAGAN The Anxiety of Affluence: Baudrillard and Sci-Fi Movies of the Reagan Era 65 Diane Rubenstein Twin Nightmares of the Medical Simulacrum: Jean Baudrillard and David Cronenberg 82 Arthur W. Frank Postmodernity and the Rumor: Late Capitalism and the Fetishism of the Commodity /Sign 98 Rosemary J. Coombe The Invisible Skyline 109 Thomas L. Dumm vii viii Contents PART III FOR(GET) UAUDRILLARD Baudrillard's Seduction of Foucault 131 Calvin Thomas Fellow Doctors of Pataphysics: Ubu, Fa us troll, and Baudrillard 146 Gary A. Genosko The Artificial and the Real: Reflections on Baudrillard's America 160 Albert Borgmann Production and Reflexivity in Marx/Daudrillard's Re-Processed Capital 177 Andrew Haase Surprise, Seduction, and Survival: or Who Was that Woman? 200 Michael Beehler Jean Baudrillard's Radical Enigma: "'f'I1P Objl~ct's Fulfillment Without Regard for the SuhjPct" 209 A. Keith Goshorn PART IV UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA Revolution and the End of Utopia 233 Jean Baudrillard The Imaginary and Daily Life 243 Michel Maffesoli Disappearance of the Word, Appearance of the World 252 Ron Silliman The Construction and Uses of Social Problems 263 Murray Edelman PART V CONVERSATION Baudrillard Shrugs: A Seminar on Terrorism and the Media, with Sylvere Lotringer and Jean Baudrillard 283 edited by Eric Johnson Index 303 Acknowledgments Several people not listed on the cover of this book were essential to our conference, and to this book. In addition to Michel Valentin (rep resented here by three new translations), special attention needs to be directed to Julie Cadell, chair of the University's Art Department; Fred McGlynn of the Philosophy Department; and Jamil Brownson of Geography. Along with the editors, they were the organizing committee which created the idea of the conference, then saw it to completion. They also helped edit some of the essays in this volume. This book is their accomplishment too. Many other people contributed generously. Paul Piper helped in arranging Silliman's visit. Renee Taaffe designed the conference's poster; Rhea Blanchard, Administrative Secretary to the Art Depart ment, conducted the conference's administrative business; Cindy Linse and Eric Johnson helped in ways innumerable. Conferences and books like this do not happen without institu tional support. In the present case, a wide array of organizations gave financial support to the project. President James Koch of the University of Montana repeatedly heard our (always last minute) pleas for funds and he consistently said yes. The speaker series which included Baudrillard was his innovation, and he pitched in with additional support at crucial stages. The Faculty Devel opment Committee of the University funded Sylvere Lotringer's visit. The Montana Committee for the Humanities funded visits by Ron Silliman, Arthur and Marilouise Kraker. The Montana Arts Council, the School of Fine Arts, the Department of Art, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Associated Students of the University of Montana contributed funding to several of the conference events. In addition, the faculty and student travel funds of several other universities made it possible for many of our conferees to attend. To all these organizations, our thanks. The editors thank The University of Chicago Press for permission to reproduce a section from Murray Edelman's Constructing the Political Spectacle(© by The University of Chicago Press). WILLIAM CHALOUPKA AND WILLIAM STEARNS ix List of Contributors Jean Baudrillard is probably the most provocative contemporary media analyst and social theorist. His books published in English include For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, The Mirror of Production, In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities, Simulations, Forget Foucault, The Evil Demon of Images, The Ecstasy of Communication, America, Cool Memories, and most recently Seduction (St. Martin's Press). His most recent book published in France is La Transparence du Mal. Until recently, he was Professor of Sociology at the Univer sity of Paris X in Nanterre. Michael Beehler is the author of T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and the Discourses of Difference (1987), and has published widely on modem literature and literary theory. His current project is Powers of Minor Literature, a study of alterity in the writings of Stanislaw Lem, Samuel Delaney, and Yevgeny Zamiatin. He teaches English at Montana State University. Albert Borgmann was educated in Germany and the United States. He is the author of The Philosophy of Language (1974) and Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (1984). Since 1970 he has been teaching philosophy at the University of Montana. Bill Chaloupka teaches political science at the University of Montana. He has recently completed a manuscript on nuclear criticism, entitled Knowing Nukes: Postmodernism and Responses to the Culture of the Atom. His articles have appeared in International Studies Quarterly, Environmental Ethics, Policy Studies journal, Social Science journal, and elsewhere. Rosemary J. Coombe teaches post-structuralist social theory to law students and explores the postmodem condition in a course on Intellectual Property law. She holds a joint appointment in Law and Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Thomas L. Dumm teaches American politics at Amherst College. He is the author of Democracy and Punishment (1987) and has recently completed a volume entitled The American Body Politic (forthcom ing). He currently is at work on a short study of Michel Foucault, to be published by Sage Publications as part of a series of books on philosophy and the problems of modernity, and is editing a work with Fred Dolan on post-structuralism and the study of American politics. X List of Contributors xi Murray Edelman was the George Herbert Mead Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is a leading American theorist of political communications. He is the author of several books and articles, including The Symbolic Uses of Politics, The Politics of Symbolic Action, Political Language, and most recently, Constructing the Political Spectacle. Arthur W. Frank has published articles in the Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, Theory and Society, Semiotica, Symbolic Interaction, and elsewhere. He teaches sociological theory and the sociology of the body and illness at the University of Calgary. Gary A. Genosko teaches social and political thought at York University. He has published articles and reviews on semiotics and post-structuralism in the American Journal of Semiotics, Canadian Philosophical Reviews and Border/Lines. A. Keith Goshorn is at the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts, Emory University. He is currently writing on questions of resistance and recuperation in postmodern culture. Andrew Haase is in the Department of Philosophy, State Univer sity of New York at Stony Brook. Recently his interview with artist Mark Kostabi appeared in the Panic Encyclopedia. Eric Johnson is a journalist who specializes in environmental politics and lives in Missoula, Montana. Arthur and Marilouise Kraker live in Montreal, are series editors of CultureTexts (St. Martin's Press and Macmillan), and co-edit the Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory. They edited and introduced Body Invaders: Panic Sex in America and wrote the Panic Encyclopedia (with David Cook). Arthur Kroker wrote The Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-Aesthetics (with David Cook), and is the author of Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant. He teaches political theory at Concordia University. Sylvere Lotringer is the General Editor of the influential journal, Semiotext[e], and co-editor (with Jim Fleming) of the acclaimed Foreign Agents series, and now the Native Agents series. His books include Pure War (with Paul Virilio}, Overexposed, and Antonin Artaud (forthcoming). He edited Foucault Live (1966-84). He is Professor of French and Comparative Literatures at Columbia University. Michel Maffesoli teaches social sciences at the Sorbonne, and is Directeur du Centre d'Etudes sur I'A ctuel et le Quotidien. His books include L'Ombre de Dyonisios: Contribution a une Sociologie de l'orgie