Baudrillard: A Remembrance of Things Unpassed
By Paul D. Miller
aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
I first met Jean Baudrillard at a conference Sylvere Lottringer
of Semiotext(e) organized in Las Vegas several years ago. The
idea of the conference was about chance processes. Needless to
say, with the Whiskey Casino as the backdrop for the conference,
and randomness as the main motif of the situation, the soundtrack
of the constant churning of slot machine wheels and pulleys, and
the continuous movement of the attendees between speeches and
gambling, it all seemed totally appropriate. Baudrillard gave
his speech dressed in a gold suit in simulation of Elvis, and
I ran my speech through various software processes to turn it
into the sound of water. When I look back at the moment, it seems
crystal clear that we were at the edge of an aesthetic and philosophical
ocean turn in how people put ideas together in the era of hyper
media. Since that time, simple things like wireless networks,
the ubiquity of the iPod, global media events like 9/11 or the
SARS virus, have all brought home how prescient his thought was.
The world knows Baudrillard as the philosopher who gave us a cautionary
tale about simulation, and if the events of today – the
war in Iraq, the economics of globalization, Katrina’s destruction
of New Orleans – have told us that in no uncertain terms,
we live in a world with a more and more tenuous grasp of the “reality”
underpinning the myths of the present day. In a world where bleak
man made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological,
social and environmental developments cannot be denied, his words
were a beacon of how we can reason through the myriad ways that
we humans have displaced the natural world. For me as a just graduating
student in the early mid 90’s, Baudrillard seemed like a
figure who cut through the haze of post-everything American cultural
malaise. I studied French literature at a time when it seemed
that America was enthralled by the end of the Cold War –
my studies were populated with people like Derrida, Foucault,
Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Althusser, Lacan, bounded
by Badiou. Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray, Wittig… The list
goes on but you get the point: these figures are part of a pantheon
where, perhaps, one of the common themes is a simple cry for new
ways to perceive how the mass media-landscape inadvertently invades
and splinters the private mind of the individual.
What Baudrillard did for me was make the world safe for doubt:
doubt about the intentions of governments, corporations, ideologies,
and yes, people. Like J.G. Ballard or Bruce Sterling, his work
hovered between descriptions of the world in present tense and
the strange and uncanny networks that hold together “the
real.” For him, like the 'simulacrum' following DeBord's
'spectacle' where 'revolution' became synonymous with hyper-consumerism
and something everyone did against the name of 'freedom,' but
that’s freedom of choice, of course. I don't mean to say
anything here, I wonder about the doubting that once swayed the
world.
Today, I wrote this piece traveling on a flight between Tokyo
and Istanbul, and as I sit here and use a wireless network in
the coffee lounge of the Hotel Buyuk Londra, I re-read him as
doubting everything – it’s as if Baudrillard says
never model a thought about anything unless you can say it to
yourself. The thought lingers, and links to a meta-critique: it
posits modern thought as withdrawn, proffered as kind of a peripheral
speech. At the birth of the 21st century, at the birth of the
new New World, of suicide bombers, insane Presidents, multi-media
equipped private armies and fundamentalist militias, his words
bear reviewing: Baudrillard – a voice that says the seductions
of reality are what we now hold dear. We speak the world. Reform,
remix, re-engineer the consent of the Western world. We need this
analysis more than ever. Vietnam is now long gone. Flip the script
and think: for us children of the late 20th century, memory is
a scarce resource. In the rear view mirror - May 68 was almost
forty years ago and most of us young people have never thought
of burning monks, Chairman Mao, Stalin, or the origins of half
of today’s problems. I think back to an almost innocent
moment in the mid 1990’s when Baudrillard with a gold suit,
made people remember that the chance processes of the world are
what give us joy. With a simple flourish, I think that he set
the tone for many young artists, writers, and musicians, to remember
a simple thing: that another world is possible.
Tokyo/Istanbul 3/15/07
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CREATION REBEL MIX CD on Trojan Records
DJ Spooky presents
DJ Spooky has produced material on the new Yoko Ono album.
DJ Spooky and the 2007 Venice Biennial
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