From: soren.pedersen-AT-warwick.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 20:05:44 +0100
Subject: Re: Desire -> Objects


Ah, A celebrity posting and suddenly the list awakes (how very 
Baudrillardian)

The "code" is the most important concept in Baud's discourse. It 
represents the telos of Baud's evolutionary history of the 
(disappearance) of signs. We all know the Saussurian story of the 
split interior to the sign (between the signifier and signified). Baud 
goes beyond that and eliminates the signified (there is some 
terminology confusion between signified and referent in Baud's 
books but that's not important). This is something that 
Postmodernists never did (they certainly decenters the signified, 
release it from its universality, but they retain its (now contingent) 
existence and thus hold on to the "fundamental axion of 
equivalence" between signifier and signified).

Left with the signifier, Baud pushes the logic even further and 
surrenders the signifier to the metaphysical "code". That's when 
things get really interesting. It's difficult to explain this futuristic 
idea. The most obvious example of metaphysical presence is 
cyberspace where code is everything there is (the total collapse of 
the distance between viewer and screen. We no longer look at 
something - the signifier - the code is transferred directly into the 
sensory center of the brain). It's also the annihilation of human 
beings to their genetic code pursued by science (the complete 
collapse of the medium - bearer of genes - and the message/code - 
the genes). It's architecture like a certain bridge in Portugal that 
viewed from the air looks exactly like a CAD/CAM drawing. Perfect 
design.

Soren