Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 22:19:14 +0100
From: ian flitman <I.Flitman-AT-herts.ac.uk>
Subject: baudrillard in london


I saw Baudrillard speak at the ICA yesterday and thought it might
interest those on the list who genuinely are interested in B.

He talked of the end of history, taking the example of Marx's
observation on  this figure called Nebron III (if I heard him
correctly), who was an attempt to re-create and personify the previous
historical figure of Napoleon, but merely ended up a grotesque parodic
caricature of the frenchman.
He then followed by saying that history has become self-repeating and in
the same way as Nebron has become farce.He continued by stating that
farce has thus become history.

I would like to know if you could justifiably call the ethnic-cleansing
of those in the  former Yugoslavia somehow farcical in that it parodies
that of the Jewish persecutions, and if you can, in what way.Is it
because we relate our knowledge of such things, which have beeen
communicated and therfore known and grasped through television/filmic
images, to other images of recent past historical events in much the
same way that we tacitly relate the knowledge of any given film genre
when viewing another example of the selfsame genre?

I 'd also like to hear from those who saw B. either at the ICA or
Brighton, particularly about the content of any interesting answers he
gave to questions he was asked.