Anamnesis pre class 9/25

Baudrillard's 'Simulations' makes me think of the cave paintings in Lascaux. These are representations of horses and buffalo that show an ability to portray themes and how perspective. Here we have a community participating in a kind of simulation where the "real" object is symbolized with pigment. Is this society replacing reality with signs. No.

The idea that we have replaced reality with signs is ridiculous. Just because the signs become more diluted and less meaningful has no bearing on the presence of reality itself. With or without consciousness, nature goes on. If I make an absurd claim and hold it up as art, then that's all I'm doing. I'm not distorting reality, taking others away from reality, or taking myself away from reality.

Baudrillard's blurb on Disneyland reminds me of a writer named Jerry Mander, who was actually cited in bibliography of the Charles Jencks Handout. He wrote a book called "In the absence of the Sacred" in which he is highly critical of Epcot. His argument goes beyond Baudrillard to say that Epcot (and major shopping malls for that matter) are essentially training grounds for humans to live in modular devises in space. The Shopping mall encapsulates a world where everything is inclusive and preordained. Sustenance and safety are a given.

I think Baudrillard is right in his paradox of the parking lot-"a veritable concentration camp"- in that he contrast the many gadgets with the one gadget--the automobile. But this is also where I think that postmodernism gets it chasm of definition. That is, I think that "the many as opposed to the few" or variety in excess is really what people mean when they say the word 'postmodern.'