Jean Baudrillard, Soho, London, Photo taken by Cromacom (Flickr)
Baudrillard quote from photo:
"The skyline lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert, and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them: the mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitice night."
I heard yesterday on my little radio in my office on NPR that Baudrillard died. He is famous for his book Simulacra and Simulation. The film, The Matrix, makes many references to this book.
Baudrillard believed, "we live in a world saturated by imagery, infused with media, sound and advertising. This simulacra of the real surpasses the real world and thus becomes hyperreal, a world that is more real than real." Scary business.
Here is one paragraph from an obituary I found in a newspaper:
Jean Baudrillard, Posted by Radio Nacional, Colombia (Flickr)
"Baudrillard argued that mass media and modern consumerist society had built up such a complex structure of symbols and simulated experience that it was no longer possible to comprehend reality as it might actually exist."
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