Baudrillard. J (1987) The Ecstasy of Communication. L'Autre par lui-même. Paris: Éditions Galileé. in Shutze, B and Shutze, C. (1988) Translation of "The Ecstasy of Communciation". New York: Semiotextle.
This seminal essay is a precursor of The Implosion of Meaning in Media, and you can see how his emphasis on communication and meaning were developed in his later essays. Baudrillard opines that our critique of what he terms the 'system of objects' (basically signs and their signifiers and signified) is steeped in the ideology that an object exists above and beyond its use, moreover that "All this still exists and at the same time it is disappearing" (1987:11). He uses the example of television to illustrate how the 'depth' and 'transcendence' of objects are being lost, as T.V. had the effects if transforming our bodies and universe into 'monitoring screens'. In other words our emotions and ideas of possession etc are no longer invested in the images we view on T.V, "...the psychological dimension has been blurred." (1987:12). This imagery is extended further using Barthe's views on the car - when we use an automobile we lose the sense of possession and become an automaton, a 'driving computer' so to speak. Because we become part of the machine itself we then blur the psychological dimension between our 'self' and the idea of the object. The car is dependent on our communication with it in order for it to work, we end up in an interface of sorts between organic and machine.
Baudrillard goes on to argue that technological advances (such as T.V., cars and space travel) have elevated the domestic sphere into a 'celestial metaphor' which has signalled the end of metaphysics and signals; and the beginning of hyperreality (a term he explores further in his works on simulacra and simulacrum). The rise of nanotechnology and the like have resulted in a change of scale that "...is discernable everywhere: the human body, our body, seems superfluous in its proper expanse, in the complexity and multiplicity of its organs, of its tissue and functions, because today everything is concentrated on the brain and the genetic code, which alone sum up the operational definition of being" (1987:18). I interpret this as that we are so focused on the minutiae of our biological selves and the universe around us it is as though we are glued to the lens of the microscope and have lost the sense of scale of our own reality. This new microscopical reality we have supermimposed onto our own, thus we are living in a hyperreality of our own creation. The body, landscape and time as stages in which we act out our existence are being dessimated, society and politics are "...being reduced to a shapeless multi-headed body.."(1987:19), and with this dissappearance of what Baudrillard terms 'public space' "...advertising invades everything (the street, the monument, the market, the stage, language)." (ibid).
