LECTURE VIII//JEAN BAUDRILLARD & POSTMODERNISM.

LECTURE VIII///JEAN BAUDRILLARD & POSTMODERNISM.

Notes from today's lecture session.
LECTURE WITH ANDY BROADY (sp?)

AIM
To examine and contexualise Jean Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality.


OBJECTIVES


1// To foreground Baudrillard's position, by showing how it develops out of a Marxist critique of capitalism;
2// To examine how Baudrillard's analysis of advertising led him to argue that consumer's engagements with commodities had begun function like a language;
3// To explore how Baudrillard extended this analysis into a fully blown theory of postmodernism.




- How the increased production in Western society transformed the structure of consumer experience.
- 1968, 'The System of Objects'- the rise of promotion & advertising taking on a primary role in consumer's disposition.
- 1970/80's- 'The mirror of production' he integrated the rise of the mass media into the analysis and developed an argument about the representations of saturated perception- a hyper-real world where reality is founded in simulacra.
- Simulacra is the dominant form of image production in modern society- in films such as 'Blade Runner' and 'The Matrix'- A dystopian story about questioning the reality of the world he inhabits (the mental projection of the digital self). Reality is reduced to a blank, white expanse which is filled with constructed images.
- Baudrillard refers to "no reality outside themselves"- corroding a tangible sense of reality. The postmodern consumers sense of the world around them is generated by the bombardment of simulacra.
- Baudrillard's ideas were grounded in Marxism. The investigation of the development post-war developed his theories and investigations. 
- Marx talked about the "labour" process- shaping environment through industry, and how our own experiences are routed and conditioned by our environment. Through his critique of capitalism, he talks about how we become alienated by this condition- the "universal condition...between man and nature"- human experience and the relationship between the environment and a change of consciousness- man's own productive capacity. 
- Commodities are possessed with "exchange value"- one quality to be exchanged for another. Each commodity can be weighed against another- qualitative as opposed to quantitative. One use value is only worth as much as another to which it is deemed to be equivalent. 
- We are forced to conceptualise the objects around us and the indirect relationship we have with the world.


- Under capitalism a workers labour becomes a commodity they must sell in order to live- directing the world around you to suit your own wishes is destroyed under capitalism (in Marxist theory). We have to "sell ourselves" in order to survive. The externalisation of the worker in his project is existing outside of him- alien, an autonomous power- the exchange disconnects us with products and commodities. 


- When people produce goods for the market, the value is set by their value to be exchanged by other things. The labour is not embodied by it's usefulness, but the ability of exchange. People's labour is an exchange commodity also.

- The transformation of production can be rooted in capitalist production from 'The Principles of Scientific Management', 1911- industralisation makes labour far more efficient (assembly lines, etc)- Henry Ford, Michigan, USA, 1913.
- Post war period there was a boom in manufacturing- assembly line production was now the normal process of construction and manufacturing. This massive production needed to be met with the rise of demand. Large quantities of the same commodities, this demand needed to be made consistent. Therefore, a corresponding market developed- publicity and advertising.  


- John Berger 'Ways of seeing', Chapter 7 discusses issues of advertising, "Publicity is not merely an assembly of competing messages... it is a language in itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal...publicity, as a system, only makes a single proposal. It proposes that we transform ourselves and our lives by buying something more." Every advert says the same thing to us "buy more things, your life will be improved."
- Advertised objects are often personified, with human characteristics- buying the products we will displace this characteristic onto the product.
- Commodities are made equatable to desires and wants- the language of publicity.
- Baudrillard examines the outlines of marketing- advertising codes products that determines the consumer's relationships with them. The object has it's effect when it transfers it's meaning onto the consumer. 

- The fundamental task of advertising is to confirm the consumer's right to enrich their existence, and to make them happy- convincing that their products will fulfill the consumer's needs- focus groups.

- Through products, advertising forces to meet the persuasion and world of needs. Mass production requires constant demand for consumer goods if it is to be sustained.


- The environment of shopping (1970 essay) Baudrillard talks about the layout of shop windows and department stores- the glamourisation of products, abundance of goods. Signifying feasting, consumerism needs, desires and fantasies (are embodied). 
- Through exposure to advertising and these commercial environments, we are all made to desire in the same way. Baudrillard starts to discuss how the display of products are similar to the linguistic sign (concept- signified, sound/image- signifier). Words are only valuable as part of a full language. Making connections between objects and their meaning- dog/chien/hund (words for dogs)- the signifier creates the signified as their is an established visual/audio communication enforced.
- One must consider how the attachments create a system of signs and how they are constructed by relations of difference (LANG theory/language). Adverts converge- car insurance/Sainsbury's/BMW's, etc- no particular arrangement, similar relationship with billboards, etc.
- In hyperreality images take on a life as their own- templates, "new realities". Simulacra overtakes and shapes the manner in which we respond to our environment- extracting meanings from concrete social relations and deploys them within the media.

- Disneyland is a "perfect model" of simulation- a play of illusions and phantasms, pirates, frontier, future, etc. A fantastical environment which distracts from the environment outside of it- a distraction from the "corruption of reality in daily life". 


- Simulacra also invades politics- recorded in monitored opinion polls and inform political decisions (televised debates, etc). Politicans are very aware of what is being said by the public and the media- this influences policy making. 
- Reference to American Psycho (post modernist), product placement, etc. Every aspect of Patrick Bateman's life is matched against products against which he has generated his own identity.