an
international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text
and image
Volume 3, March 2006, ISSN
1552-5112
The accelerating disappearance of the
aesthetic canon in the world of art today, which the surrealists had celebrated
and hoped for, defines, among other things, the postmodern condition. The surrealist
movement that aspired to fuse dream and reality is echoed in the post-modern
age with the elimination of the ultimate barrier between the real and the fake.
Baudrillard’s theory
of the postmodern relies heavily on the notion of a (con)fusion between the
real and the fake and a subsequent concept of
hyperreality. His discussion of
the
For Baudrillard,
Beaubourg conveys the existential meaninglessness and the hopelessness inherent
to our nuclear age. The subtitle for L'effet
Beaubourg, which reads "Implosion et Dissuasion" captures Baudrillard's
postmodern tragic angle. The entire pamphlet on Beaubourg revolves around this
enigmatic phrase, which, as in a symphony, weaves in and out as a leitmotif
throughout the entire essay. The text
is, in fact, the development of this basic tenet that Beaubourg is
representative of the nuclear age in which we live.
Baudrillard
remains close to the romantic concept of the “modern in art, as expressed by
Stendhal and Baudelaire, and which is defined by the representative or the "characteristic" aspect of a
society at a given time and place. According to this concept, Beaubourg is
representative of our age because its structure is implosive rather than
explosive, and it projects a security that is "absolue” since it depends
on the factor of “dissuasion”
(deterrence). Baudrillard uses a
metaphorically scientific language to authenticate his postmodern analysis.
Baudrillard's text thus develops quite craftily a systemic metaphor, one that
is sustained throughout the entire essay.
Beaubourg represents our modern world because it is modeled after a
nuclear power plant. Accordingly,
Baudrillard uses the vocabulary pertaining to physics rather than art. The matricial metaphor is announced on the
first page. Baudrillard reifies
Beaubourg in a very literal way. He
underscores the center as object by calling it
"la chose" because
it is and represents nothing. Much like the
…le Centre fonctionne comme un incinérateur absorbant l’énergie culturelle
et la dévorant…un peu comme le monolithe noir de 2001: convection insensée de
tous les contenus venus s’y matérialiser, s’y absorber et s’y anéantir. [ibid, 9,20]
[...The center functions as an
incinerator, absorbing cultural energy and devouring it...a little like the
black monolith of 2001: nonsensical convection of all the contents that have
come here to materialize, get absorbed and desintegrated]
The words
"incinérateur, énergie, convection" refer exclusively to the nuclear
industry while the epithets
"culturelle" and
"insensée" evoke an artistic avant-garde monument. The two semic fields, scientific and
artistic, fuse to produce
"l'effet
Beaubourg". The matricial
nuclear seme develops into this metaphoric dichotomy throughout the text, to
convey Baudrillard’s idea of Beaubourg:
Un peu comme les centrales nucléaires: le vrai danger qu'elles constituent
n'est pas l'insécurité, la
pollution, l'explosion mais le système de sécurité maximal qui rayonne
autour d'elles, le glacis de contrôle et
de dissuasion qui s'étend de proche en proche, surtout le
territoire, glacis technique,
écologique, économique, géopolitique.
Qu'importe le nucléaire; la
centrale est une matrice où
s'élabore un modèle de sécurité absolue qui va se
généraliser à tout le champ
social..." [ibid, 10,11]
[A little like nuclear centers: the
real danger that they pose is not insecurity, pollution, explosion but the
maximum security system which shine all around, the control and deterrence
glacis which spreads around
especially the territory, technical, ecological, economic, geopolitical glacis. What does the nuclear matter; the
center is a matrix where a model of absolute security is elaborated which is
about to generalize to the whole social field...]
Baudrillard himself
uses the words "matrice et modèle" which both work as technical and
semiotic analytical tools.
The language
Baudrillard uses is philosophical in its most traditional rhetorical sense with
the support of a technological vocabulary in keeping with the postmodern
character of the age and of its illustrative topic at hand. Thus, Baudrillard
presents "axiomes" for his theory.
Il faut donc partir de cet axiome: Beaubourg est le monument de dissuasion
culturelle.[Beaubourg, 23]
A technological
register short circuit all language registers, both metaphorically and
literally:
…Court-circuit gigantesque...métabolisme défunt...gelé comme un mécanoïde de science-fiction, solide
géométrique, hydrocarbures, raffinage, cracking, lumières strobo et gyroscopiques, transmutation. [Ibid]
[...Gigantic short circuit...dead
metabolism...frozen like a science fiction mecanoid, geometrical solid,
hydrocarbons, refinery, cracking, strobe and gyroscopic lights, transmutation.]
To illustrate fully
our technological progress, Beaubourg symbolizes more than a nuclear center. It
is the icon of all that makes our postmodern culture possible, i.e. oil
refineries and commuter trains for example. Thus, besides simulating a nuclear
power plant, Beaubourg is also a simulacrum of an oil refinery complex:
Beaubourg
est la masse elle même que l'édifice traîte
comme un convertisseur, comme une
chambre noire, ou, en termes d'input-output, exactement comme une raffinerie traîte
un produit pétrolier ou un flux de matière brute. [Ibid, 27]
[Beaubourg is the mass
itself that the edifice treats like a converter, like a black room, or, in
terms of input-output, exactly like a refinery treats a petroleum product or a
flux of raw material]
Thus, with this third dimensional
discourse, Baudrillard can conclude briefly on the nuclear metaphor in the
third paragraph of his introduction:
...Le même
modèle, toutes proportions gardées, s’élabore au Centre: fission culturelle,
dissuasion politique. [Ibid, 11]
[The
same model, all things considered, is elaborated at the Center: cultural
fission, political deterrence.]
For Baudrillard,
what Beaubourg shares mainly with the nuclear center is its function of
deterrence. The nuclear age, as represented by Beaubourg, has irradiated all
levels of social life as a space of deterrence, which makes Beaubourg a
“characteristic” monument of post modernity:
Cet espace de dissuasion...est aujourd'hui, virtuellement, celui de tous les
rapports sociaux... Beaubourg est...Un monument génial de notre
modernité...le reflet le plus exact,
jusqu'en ses contradictions. De l’état de choses
actuel. [Ibid, 13, 14]
[This
space of deterrence.... is today virtually that of all social rapports...Beaubourg
is a brilliant monument of our modernity.... the more exact reflection, down to
its contradictions of the state of things today.]
Space, as the
essential element of all and any discussion on art, is what Baudrillard shares
with Michel Serres and Roland Barthes in their discussion of art and of the
Serres, in his Esthétiques sur Carpaccio, uses space as
the semiotic basis of his art analyzes. Similarly, Baudrillard uses space
("cet espace de
dissuasion"), as the main signifier of art, as it provides its essential
aesthetic and ontological dimension. Baudrillard’s empty space signifies the
death of art and culture, as
"...travail de deuil culturel..."[23] [work of cultural mourning]. Beaubourg as
container of a cultural void is the monument of this death. It is the "monument ou un anti-monument
équivalent de l’inanité phallique de la Tour Eiffel de nos temps."[15]
[Monument or anti-monument equivalent to the phallic inanity of the
…It participates in no rite, in no
cult, not even in Art; you cannot visit the Tower as a museum [ibid, 5]
Yet, the Tower was
“characteristic” of its age and Barthes also used a similar technological
vocabulary to underline this modern symbol of the age by way of its pseudo
scientific uses: "aerodynamic measurements, studies of the resistance of
substances, physiology of the climber radio electric research problems of
telecommunications, meteorological observations etc." [Ibid, 6]
But a technological
and functional
...The symbol of
The space of the
Thus, in Barthes, there is none of the apocalyptic
imagery of Baudrillard’s nuclear plant and its possible aftermath as envisioned
by Michel Serres. The latter imagined
masses of corpses buried underneath the
mythic
function is to join, as the poet says,
base and summit, or again, earth and heaven [ibid, 4]
For Serres, however, the tower
shares with the Cathedral its catacomb underneath, the cemetery of ashes that
serves as its foundation. The vertical
elan toward the Heaven and scientific progress of the modernist architecture
and the vision of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century are
superseded by the downward élan toward Hell and scientific destruction of the post modernist architecture and the
vision of the middle and late twentieth century.
Beaubourg
as museum
Given this vision, it
is difficult to remember that Baudrillard is, after all, writing about the
space of a museum, unlike the empty
Indeed, Beaubourg
does shelter classic works of art
(not unlike Roissy’s futuristic design which leads after all, to conventional
planes, Baudrillard notes) with the result that the inner space of art implodes
within as in a nuclear center, resulting in death. Baudrillard demonstrates this cultural death
by developing the same bi-semic metaphor of science and art: scientific nouns are modified by esthetic
adjectives like: "molécules culturelles[18], "production culturelle" [18],
"laboratoire de fiction" [21], "flux humain"
[28].
The aesthetic death
that implodes within Beaubourg is symbolically simulated by the physical death
that may implode Beaubourg structurally, because of its precarious
construction:
Masse critique, masse implosive.
Au-delà de 30 000, elle risque de faire "plier" la
structure...[ibid, 34]
[Critical mass, implosive mass. Beyond
30,000, it is likely to make the structure fold...]
In this respect also,
Beaubourg is representative of our nuclear implosive age because it disseminates
panic "quelque chose qui tient de
la panique et d'un monde panique." [38] The panic is driven by this fear
of implosion by SATURATION (in capital
letters in text) [39], which, Baudrillard tells us, is today's mode of
disappearance for everything, including political power, ideologies, and even
cities and its monuments. Our inability to understand other systems but those
relying on expansion, explosion, and liberation, understandably increases our
fear. The hyperbolic character of the implosive CHARACTER of our world (as
Baudrillard emphasizes by capitalizing the word) finds its hyperbolic metaphor
in the cosmic image of star implosion:
Les systèmes stellaires ne cessent
pas non plus d'exister une fois dissipée leur énergie de
rayonnement: ils implosent selon un processus d'abord lent, puis ils deviennent
des systèmes involutifs... [ibid,
45]
Baudrillard thus
doesn't hesitate to have recourse to any linguistic codes and registers of
language he needs in order to expand and explain a metaphor which itself
illustrates a multi-dimensional symbol. Beaubourg is a pre-textual metaphor for
the age we live in and which Beaubourg symbolically contains within itself. It
is this implosive characteristic of this age which is Baudrillard's focus, and
which he develops under every rubric pertaining to our postmodern world. The semic fields of the sciences (math, physics, economics, astronomy)
contribute metaphysically to Baudrillard's demonstration in his rhetorical use.
They are more important in the end than the object Beaubourg itself [9]. The
end of the book shows the impact of Beaubourg as symbol, when Baudrillard
leaves Beaubourg to discuss the
ramifications of implosion and deterrence on another socio-political and
economic front in May ‘68 in
Un ordre de
simulacres antérieurs (celui de
sens)...ne connaît même plus la distinction du signifiant et du signifié, ni du contenant et du contenu...
[ibid, 20]
As Kristeva writes in Soleil
Noir:
Par la polyvalence des signes et des symboles qui destabilise
la nomination et accumulent
autour d'un signe
une pluralité de conotations, offre une chance au sujet d'imaginer
le non-sens, ou le vrai sens,
de la
chose. [Soleil noir, 109]
Instead, like
It is because of its
"meaningless" operation
("insensée") that Beaubourg successfully kills and buries
culture, whereas Dubuffet’s counter-cultural stand for example, Baudrillard
tells us, "ne fait comme on sait, que la ressusciter" [27] Beaubourg's implosive destruction lies in its
simulacrum and fetishization of culture and in its self-conscious stance as
sign of post modernity. As a consequence, Baudrillard describes Beaubourg as an
"hyper-marché de la culture." [29]
The Beaubourg visitor is no longer a museumgoer but the consumer of a
hyper-culture, while the objets d'art
they become "stocks d'objets."
A mass culture, i.e. culture as merchandise is what Beaubourg offers the
masses of people who rush in not to see but to touch ("leur regard n'est
qu'un aspect de la manipulation tactile.”)[38]
It
is not surprising therefore that Baudrillard should describe the museum as a
bank in Pour une politique economique du
signe. Thus, Beaubourg stands as the central bank of art today. Baudrillard
applies to Beaubourg his theories on the economy of the sign, and on the
fetishism of value in the capitalist market. "C'est l'artefact
qui est objet de dessin."
Baudrillard had written about the madness of the art auction before it
scandalously exploded in the '80s with the $50 million sale of a Van Gogh
painting. According to Baudrillard, the political economy of the sign is the
ultimate form of class domination:
Les classes dominantes ont toujours-ou bien assuré d'emblée leur domination
sur les valeurs/signes (sociétés archaïques et traditionelles) ou bien tenté
(l'ordre bourgeois capitaliste) de dépasser, de transcender, de consacrer leur
privilège économique en privilège des signes, parce que ce stade ultérieur
représente le stade accompli de la domination.
Cette logique, qui vient relayer la logique de classe et ne se définit
plus par la propriété des moyens de production, mais par le contrôle du procès
de signification...nous la trouvons tout entière...dans la vente aux enchères
de l'oeuvre d'art." [Pour une politique, 133]
The ruling classes have always made
sure of their domination over values/signs (archaic and traditional societies) or
they attempted (the capitalist bourgeois order) to consecrate their economic
privilege into a privilege of signs, because this ulterior stage represents the
realized stage of domination. This logic, which continues the logic of class
and is no longer defined by the property of means of production, but by the
control of the process of meaning...we find it entirely ...in the auction of
the work of art.
Aristocratic elitism
is evident in the desire for the work of art, which Baudrillard refers to as
its "pedigree" found in the
signature. The psychological fetishism
is also projected onto the work of art.
Umberto Eco who is most known for his analysis of this process of
fetishization of works of art, wrote that art becomes "fetishized"-that is, ceases to be
appreciated for what it is or can be and comes to be coveted instead, for what
it represents, for the prestige it is supposed to
convey. [Open Work, 197]
For
Adorno, the fetishism of art takes place when the product of "nobler origin" becomes
popularized. This notion confirms the postmodern idea that the popular classes
sacralize the sign of wealth, class and power through the work of art. Eco also
understood that:
Unable and willing to apprehend either
good or bad music analytically, he (the average man) accepts it as it is, as
something that it is good to consume because the law of the market has decreed
it to be so, thus relieving him of any need to express his own judgement."
[Open Work, 195]
For Baudrillard
however, the object is but a pretext for the social desire that is the driving
force behind the object itself:
Ce n'est jamais le "fétishisme de l'objet" qui soutient
l'échange dans son principe, mais le
principe social de l'échange
qui soutient la valeur fétichisée de
l'objet [Pour une politique...,
137]
It is never the “fetishism of the
object” which supports the exchange in its principle, but the social principle
of the exchange which supports the fetishized value of the object.
Baudrillard's theory
summons Rene Girard's theory of the mimetic desire, in that the value
attributed to a person (or to an object,
in Baudrillard's case) is never intrinsic to the person (object) but is
instead, dependent on its “aristocratic” value, the accrued value or
desirability of an object or person, according to the "value" of its
acquirer. Baudrillard also echoes Bourdieu when he points out the significance
of snobbery and elitism
(prestige/distinction) in our capitalist society in relation to
art:
Le prestige hante partout nos sociétés industrielles, dont la culture (bourgeoise)
n'est jamais que le fantôme
de valeurs aristocratiques. Partout se reproduit collectivement, au-delà de la valeur
économique et à partir d'elle, la magie du code, la magie d'une
communauté élective et sélective ,
sondée par la même règle du jeu et les mêmes systèmes de signes." [Pour une politique...
138]
Prestige haunts our industrial
societies everywhere, because their (bourgeois) culture is never anything but
the phantom of aristocratic values. We find reproduced everywhere the magic of
the code, the magic of a community that is elective and selective, ruled by the
same rule and the same systems of signs.
In Distinction, Bourdieu
demonstrated the relationship between class
and the so-called aesthetic
experience. Indeed, society's
(re)production and practice of elitism is shown in the gain and loss of prestige of some
specific works of art throughout time.
Bourdieu shows how the recognition of a work of art as "good” art depends
on its aristocratic and therefore limited reception and vice-versa. Roland
Barthes would have attributed the demise of these styles of art to their "embourgeoisement". Baudrillard understood this same phenomenon,
and interpreted the movements of counterculture, like Dubuffet's, as the
desirable stage of the work of art in an elitist culture. Bourdieu proves that
good taste is nothing more than liking the right art at the right time, i.e.,
when the right people like it. Wrong timing will result in showing what Kant
called the "goût barbare" c'est a dire le goût populaire." [L'amour de l'art, 163]
Bourdieu's
optimistic view resides in this republican faith in education even, if the
ultimate function of education serves the social elite. Indeed, it would be
difficult to brush away as just simply sarcastic his quote of an optimistic
Leibniz: "L'éducation peut
tout: elle fait danser les
ours" [ibid, 112] For Bourdieu, then, Beaubourg serves its purpose
as educational museum for the people, given its popularity and popular appeal.
For Baudrillard, however, popular culture entails its death.
We
can see how the Voltairian Baudrillard differs in this fundamental point of
view from Bourdieu's Panglossian optimism. In fact, Bourdieu does find social
value in visiting museums, unlike Baudrillard who sees in the death of culture
as symbolized by the implosive quality of Beaubourg, an understandable
evolution of society. The death of
culture does not result from the awareness of the elitism of culture by a
democratic society but more by an out of control self-destructive society.
Baudrillard
was right to see Beaubourg as the “characteristic” monument to and of our age
in that it is recognized as the central space of popular culture today.
Beaubourg receives thousands of people each day. Parisians use it more and more
as a center for their cultural activities and social encounters. It thus
resembles more and more the Cathedral as a “maison du peuple”. It is centrally
located in
The
disappearance of discrimination in art tastes, and the awareness and collapse
of "distinction" in Art has not opened and liberated a world of
possibilities for Baudrillard as it has, for Bourdieu and to some extent, for
Umberto Eco, who optimistically wrote that Art was not dead, but had simply
evolved into other forms. Baudrillard,
on the other hand, sees in the mid and mass culture, the end of culture, even
of civilization altogether.
Baudrillard has a similar apocalyptic vision
of the future of our society as Michel Serres because he believes that the
dynamic of change as evolution and progress has changed for the first time in
our history. For Baudrillard, Beaubourg is a metaphor of this change: like the
earth/star, it shows a reverse dynamic, from the explosive revolution of
countercultural movements to the implosive evolution of a cultural void. It may
be that the
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland The
Baudrillard, Jean L'effet
Beaubourg Paris: Galilee, 1977
Pour une
politique economique du signe Paris:
Bourdieu, Pierre/Darbel, Alain L'amour
de l'art Paris: Minuit,
1969
Derrida, Jacques The Truth in Painting
of
Memoirs
of the Blind
of
Eco, Umberto The Open Work
Press, 1989
Kristeva, Julia Soleil noir Paris: Gallimard, 1987
Serres, Michel Esthetiques sur
Carpaccio Paris: Herman, 1975
Statues
an
international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text
and image
Volume 3, March 2006, ISSN
1552-5112