2. Introducrion
Born in 1929 in Reims, Paris, Jean Baudrillard started his studies
learning German language and later obtained a doctorate in sociology.
In 1966 he began teaching in the University de Paris X- Nanterre and
subsequently joined the Institut de Recherche sur L’Innovation Sociale,
part of the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique.
In 1986 he moved to IRIS (Institut de Recherche et D’Information
Socio-Economique) at the Universitie de Paris-IX Dauphine, where he
spent the latter part of his teaching career. During this time he had begun
to move away from sociology as a discipline and, after ceasing to teach full-
time, he rarely identified himself with any particular discipline, although he
remained linked to the academic world.
His books gathered a wide audience during the 1980s and 1990s and
in his last years, to an extent, he became an intellectual celebrity, published
frequently in the English and French speaking popular press.
3. Points made by Jean Baudrillard
1) The loss of history: as Baudrillard puts it in "History: A Retro Scenario,"
"History is our lost referential, that is to say our myth." He goes on to say
that "The great event of this period, the great trauma, ist his decline of
strong referentials, these death pangs of the real and of the rational that
open onto an age of simulation"
2) Mediatization: The fact that movies and television (the media) keep
turning to history and to various "retro" recreations of the past is merely a
symptom for the loss of history. Indeed, such media works continue the
process of forgetting history; as Baudrillard writes of the NBC
3) Consumer society: A culture of consumption has so much taken over our
ways of thinking that all reality is filtered through the logic of exchange
value and advertising. As Baudrillard writes, "Our society thinks itself and
speaks itself as a consumer society. As much as it consumes anything, it
consumes itself as consumer society, aside a Advertising is the triumphal
paean to that idea“
4) Simulacra and simulation: Above all else, Baudrillard keeps returning to
his concepts, simulacra and simulation, to explain how our models for the
real have taken over the place of the real in postmodern society.
4. How would Bauldrillard see my music video?
I believe that Bauldrillard would take a fairly cynical view
unto my music video. I think much of this would be down
to the main theme of the video being centered around a
narrative for ease of analysis, and Bauldrillard would
suggest that this wastes time and valuable screen time for
the music video. He would also feel that much of the
meaning of the song would be taken away with the
inclusion of such a strong narrative. However, he may
also appreciate that the general message of my music
video will relate to the theme of the song, and as such he
would appreciate that I have attempted to illustrate the
video in a way that would appeal to an audience.
