Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 12:53:14 -0800 (PST)
From: oconnell-AT-oz.net (Mark O'Connell)
Subject: Re: science fiction


Alan,

Thanks for your reply regarding the Warhol essay.

>The Baudrillard essay about Warhol that I have is called "Machinic Snobbery",
>so
>I don't know if that is the same one you have. I would say that the use of
>"subject" or, better "absence of subject" in this essay is typical of
>Baudrillard. He is saying, in my poor paraphrase, that Warhol is radical
>because
>he has annihilated the artist, the creative act, claims to celebrity, claims to
>subjective interpretation of the world on the part of the artist, or of the
>work
>of art on the part of the critic. He identifies with the machine, commits
>suicide as a subject, and offers to us the pure illusion of technology.

Could you elaborate a bit on your phrase "pure illusion of technology"?
There is a line in the essay that states "that the machine is the generator
of the total illusion of the modern world...",
I assume this is the same idea.  I can imagine a meaning for this in
relation to digital technology, it could be considered illusory as it works
with descriptions of things, rather then things themselves. But what about
mechanical technology? I mean, it's solid stuff!  What kind of illusion is
being referred to? An illusion in the sense of maya?  What machine? Is
"machine" a word for something like a global information system? A media
machine?  If I'm being painfully literal I apologize,  but I would like to
unravel some of this...


thanks sincerely for your time-

Mark O'Connell
oconnell-AT-oz.net