The Ecstasy of Communication
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English Pages [10] Year 1983
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THE ECSTASY OF COMMUNICATION
Je an
Baudrilla rd
There is no longer any system of objects. My
first
bool" contains a critique
of the object as obvious fact) substance) realit),) use value.) There the object was taken as sign) but as sign still heavy with meaning. In this
critique
two principal logics i'nterfeTed with each other: a phantasmatic logic that referred principal!;' to pS)lchoanal)'sis-its identifications,
projections,
and
the entire imaginary realm of transcendence) power and sexualit)l ojJerat-ing at the level of objects and the environment, with a privilege accorded to the house/autonwbile axis (immanence/transcendence); and
a
difef rential social
logic that made distinctions b)l referring to a sociology, itself derived from anthropolog)' (consumption as the production of signs) dif/eTentiation, status
and p res t7:ge). Behind these log'ics) in some way descriptive and analytic, there
was
already the dream of s)mbolic exchange, a dream of the status of
11
the object and consumption beyond exchange and use, beyond value and ( equivalence. In other words) a sacrificial logic of consumption, gift) expen diture
(depense),
potlatch, and the accursed portion. '1
In a certain way all this still exists, and yet in other respects it is all disappearing. The description of this whole intimate universe-projec145
THE
146
ANTI-Ar.STHETIC
tive, imaginary and symbolic-still corresponded to the. .Qbj_�_