'Art is dead' (Jean Baudrillard) in light of Baudrillards statement discuss the impact of modern t

'Art is dead' (Jean Baudrillard) in light of Baudrillards statement discuss the impact of modern technology on the nature of art.

Concerned with the concept of artificial versus human intelligence, Turing suggested that through mimicry, robots with artificial intelligence could one day match and eventually take over from human intelligence. He surmised that artificial intelligence was a form of intelligence that could learn according to a set of coded mathematic equations that could be used to mimic human behaviour through response until the robot had learned. If we are to follow Turing’s definition of human intelligence then the implications of the role of creation and art seem somewhat mechanical. What is also interesting in Turing’s philosophy regarding artificial intelligence is his belief that a human observer would not be able to tell the difference between the emotional consciousness of a human and the formulated response of a robot due to both being displayed externally. Essentially, what we find in Turing’s concept of artificial intelligence, and indeed the human scope of human creation, is that it is a very superficial one. For instance, can it be said that because a form of intelligence exhibit’s the image of a loving being it is actually capable of love? We could conclude from Turing’s concept that the role of subjective experience and subjectivity is completely lost. However, it could also be perceived that it is with the recognition of emotive response and the objective portrayal of mimicry that this intelligence turns from that of a mimicking robot to that of an inquisitive and introspective being capable of contemplating the often paradoxical and highly subjective nature of identity.

However, even if we were to accept this definition of intelligence as either a recognition of ones own superficial identity from which all external things, such as social interaction and contemplation, become attached there is still the question of whether or not artificial intelligence can be applied to humanity or the often described human soul. This can be seen with a notion put forward by Searle in his notion of the Chinese Room. In this idea, Searle indicated that even though an artificial intelligence could recognise, incorporate and subsequently mimic the external behaviours required to appear human (or emotionally intelligent) it couldn’t indicate the manifestation of an awareness for what this behaviour meant or symbolised to other humans - in essence, it did not understand the meaning of it’s world as it had no subjective identity. He used the example of an English speaking human going inside the mechanical mind of a robot and using certain symbols as a coded ’representative’ for the instruction of an unknown language i.e. Chinese (Searle, 1980). He suggested that although the human had access to the forms of code used by the mechanical brain to illicit the correct response in the language of Chinese, he did not actually know or engage in the meaning or significance of what he was doing. Essentially, it was regarded by Searle to be simply a mechanical response according to a pre programmed code that aroused no emotional or introspective query as a speaker within a certain culture and language would. .

From either perspective we can see that the primary role of A I in its application of emotional intelligence is agreed in terms of superficial mimicry and external reality. However, we see that there is much disagreement in terms of consciousness and awareness and its relation to the objective world. Essentially, Turing suggests that human consciousness is no different to artificial intelligence as both are learned through mimicry. Contrastingly, Searle suggests that a robot with artificial intelligence cannot have any consciousness because all it does, in essence, is exhibit mimicry through a coded logic that is devoid of emotion or understanding and, crucially, that it cannot identify and subjectively engage in the meaning of the objects that appear before it in the external environment.

Informed, in part, by the role of intelligence as it applies to experience and the role of subjectivity as it relates to the objective world, philosopher Jean Baudrillard began an enquiry into humanity and its unobservable relationship to the world. Focusing on the condition of the free world and the emphasis that its medias had placed upon the commercialisation, imagery and comprehension of art, Baudrillard spoke of the new emphasis on the philosophy of self fulfilment suggesting that,

‘Through planned motivation we find ourselves in an era where advertising takes over the moral responsibility for all of society and replaces a puritan morality with a hedonistic morality of pure satisfaction, like a new state of nature at the heart of hyper civilisation’ (Baudrillard, 1968, p.3)

After prescribing the current philosophical and moral reality that informs humanity in the post modern condition, pertaining strongly to the west, Baudrillard then turned to the notion of subject / object consciousness. In this consumer-able condition that pertained to post modern living, Baudrillard concluded that the relationship between the subject and object now forms the living consciousness of an abstracted life between what he/she identifies with and what is signified in the actual consummation of the chosen object by stating that,

‘We can see that what is consumed are not objects but the relation itself - signified and absent, included and excluded at the same time - it is the idea of the relation that is consumed in the series of objects which manifests it.’ (Baudrillard, 1967, p.11)

From this we can see a broaching of the relationship absent from Turing and Searle’s exploration into human intelligence versus artificial intelligence. However, what Baudrillard does is implement the idea of a simulated code that works by replacing the old humanised ideological frameworks of society that once informed the gap between subject and object, such as social exchange and communal ideology. By doing this Baudrillard then shows how this simulated code informs a new humanity that does not live out a life according to the meaning supported by a communal language, but an imagined life that was understood and identified with by its relationship to the values apparent within the code - essentially, placing life itself as a simulated relationship of the subject and his / her object choice. Writing on the consequences of this new reality and the cultural change that goes from registering the external behaviour of a subject as an indication of a subjective response to the recognition of the other as an object image of simulated experience, Baudrillard suggested that,

‘A whole imagery based on contact, a sensory mimicry and a tactile mysticism, basically ecology in its entirety, comes to be grafted on to this universe of operational simulation, multi-stimulation and multi response. This incessant test of successful adaptation is naturalised by assimilating it to animal mimicry. , and even to the Indians with their innate sense of ecology tropisms, mimicry, and empathy: the ecological evangelism of open systems, with positive or negative feedback, will be engulfed in this breach, with an ideology of regulation with information that is only an avatar, in accordance o a more flexible patter.’ (Baudrillard, 1976, p.9)

In this notion prescribing the significance of the experience of the hyper real, Baudrillard has given a template of a new humanity that accords to the missing relationship between that of subject and object that Turing and Searle could not fathom. Turning to a post modern text we can see how this relationship is explored and how the role of simulation is administered. Born in Los Angeles California in the United States of America in 1964, Brett Easton Ellis graduated from Bennington College before turning to writing. Concerned with identity and the changing perspectives in an American post-modern culture prescribed not least of all by Baudrillard, Ellis began to write novels set in and around the disenchanted youth of the American West. However, it was not until his third novel American Psycho, with its environment of the global city (New York) and its multi-cultural characters, that the position of post modern identity could be opened up to greater investigation. Often cited by right wing critics as a glamorisation of malevolence and violence and left wing critics as an expose of materialism existence in the superficial age of the nineteen eighties, Ellis’ novel has suffered much misplaced criticism. Observed from a first person perspective the story details the ordinary life of a subject in the affluent nineteen eighties hub of commerce and finance. However, through the protagonists meticulous rationalism used throughout the narrative we can see evidence for the imagery based reality of his environment and the episodic psychological longings for human meaning within this reality. This provides the crucial psycho element of the novel. The character of Patrick Bateman is white, western, male, affluent, and independent of class restriction and has been handed by Ellis the most culturally opportune position that Western society has to offer. He is in essence the very thing that is revered by business enthusiasts and attacked by socialists, which is perhaps the essence of much criticism. On investigating some of the accounts put forth by Bateman in relation to the objective, external environment, we can how Baudrillard’s notion of simulation and hyper reality is significant to the protagonist. In one scenario in which Bateman depicts the meaning and significance of a certain experience, we see that his portrayal is like that of a computerised interchangeable image. In this depiction we see that the spaces between people are of no circumstance in his conception of the image as we may come to expect from a modernist or socialist text. People, as he sees them, are simply the objects that occupy the image. In this sense, the people in the image are simply totalised and universalised and can therefore be considered part of the same object. In the description of the city detailed by Bateman’s consciousness, we see that,

‘Once outside, ignoring the bum lounging below the Les Miserables poster and holding a sign that reads: I’VE LOST MY JOB I AM HUNGRY I HAVE NO MONEY PLEASE HELP, Whose eyes tear after I pull the tease-the bum-with-a-dollar trick and tell him, “Jesus, will you get a fucking shave, please,” my eyes almost like they were guided by radar, focus on a red Lamborghini Countach parked at the curb, gleaming the streetlamps, and I have to stop moving, the Valium shockingly, unexpectedly kicking in, everything else becomes obliterated: the crying bum, the black kids on crack rapping along to the blaring beat box, the clouds of pigeons flying overhead looking for space to roost, the ambulance sirens, the honking taxis, the decent-looking babe in the Betsy Johnson dress, all of that fades and in what seems like time-lapse photography - but in slow motion, like a movie - the sun goes down, the city gets darker and all I can see is the red Lamborghini and all I can hear is my own even steady panting. I’m still standing, drooling, in front of the store, staring, minutes later (I don’t know how many).’ (Ellis, 1991, p.112-113)

We can see from this example of the text that Bateman’s perception of the city is constant and fixed rather than abstract. However, when he sees the Lamborghini the fixed description of an environment turns into a montage of a city disjointed without a linear depiction of time and without the governing physical laws of cause and effect judged to be crucial to the notions of artificial intelligence put forward by the Turing and Searle debate. Essentially, the environment diminishes throughout the description and with it the reader’s perception of reality drifts into a state of edited tele-visual imagery, with only the significance of the Lamborghini image holding a meaningful focus. In essence, knowledge and understanding of Bateman’s own identity is symbolised in this account by his own psychology, becoming divorced from the external environment in any sense other than the representation of an image. That is not to say that Bateman’s own subjectivity is not detached from his existence, rather, it is in a clear and defined split between his subjectivity, which is interacting in the hyper reality of images that his human psychology has clearly become detached from. For instance, on taking Bethany to dinner in a rather ordinary and routine manner, Bateman indicates his motives to the reader whilst engaging in a customary discourse, saying that,

‘Lunch is alternatively a burden, a puzzle that needs to be solved, an obstacle, and then it floats effortlessly into the realm of relief and I’m able to give a skilful performance - my overriding intelligence tunes in and lets me know that it can sense how much she wants me, but I hold back, uncommitted. She’s also holding back, but flirting nonetheless. She has made a promise by asking me to lunch and I panic, once the squid is served, certain that I will never recover unless it is fulfilled. Other men notice her as they pass by our table. Sometimes I coolly bring my voice down to a whisper. I’m hearing things - noise, mysterious sounds, inside my head; her mouth opens, closes, swallows liquid, smiles, takes me in like a magnet covered with lipstick, mentions something involving fax-machines, twice. I finally order a J & B on the rocks, then cognac. She has mint-coconut sorbet. I touch, hold her hand across the table, more than a friend. Sun pours into Valentinies, the restaurant empties out, it nears three. She orders a glass of Chardonnay, then another, then the check. She has relaxed but something happens. My heartbeat rises and falls, momentarily stabilises. I listen carefully. Possibilities once imagined plummet. She lowers her eyes and when she looks back at me I lower mine.’ (Ellis, 1991, p.237)

We can see that there are two very different natures becoming divorced from each other in this account. Firstly, the description of Bateman’s self engaging with the otherness of Bethany. And secondly, the description of the psychological human perspective, which opens him up to an overwhelming sense of confusion. In this state of confusion we can see him consider the possibilities of love, which in a sense, dismissive of the significance of simulation, would have been permitted, achievable and would have ultimately rendered him free of his upset. Moving the emphasis away from the relationship between subject and object and to the representation of time and space we can see how the psychological space created by Ellis is used. It is in this psychological temporal space that Bateman is allowed to narrate his macabre attacks in great detail and in a language that is more meaningful than the traditional western protagonists of nihilism and more universal than the traditional post-modern protagonists of immeasurable subjectivity. In the midst of a supposed psychotic episode in which Bateman attempts to senselessly torture and murder Bethany, we see him explain that,

’I lean in above her and shout, over her screams, “try to scream, scream, keep screaming….” I’ve opened all the windows and the door to my terrace and when I stand over her, the mouth opens and not even screams come out anymore, just horrible, guttural, animal noises, sometimes interrupted by retching sounds. “|Scream honey,” I urge, “keep screaming“. I lean down, even closer, brushing her hair back. “No one cares. No one will help you….” She tries to cry out again but she’s losing consciousness and she’s capable of only a weak moan. I take advantage of her helpless state and, removing my gloves, force her mouth open and with scissors cut out her tongue, which I pull easily from her mouth and hold in the palm of my hand, warm and still bleeding, seeming so much smaller than in her mouth.’ (Ellis, 1991, p.246)

This random attack expressed in a somewhat out of place rational and considered narrative seems much more in keeping with third person narration. Furthermore, it seems to ignore the established western notion of humanity, whilst paying little significance to the details of the emotional experience. For instance, key psychological determinants so long associated with the rationality of murder such as power, hate, aggression, desire, revenge and envy long associated with the perceived pathological leanings towards murder, is absent. What we see instead of this is an examination of detailed emotionally detached and therefore comparatively impersonal murder. However, before accepting a notion of rationally prescribed gothic horror and macabre, we should consider this description in terms of tense. Bateman begins a description of the remnants of his attack, placing it in a language of western discourse. He uses the purely descriptive language of rationality to account for this attack. However, when looking back at his creation he admiringly critiques what he has done as a work of art, describing the scene as,

’Her breasts have been chopped off and they look blue and deflated, the nipples a disconcerting shade of brown. Surrounded by dry black blood, they lie, rather delicately, on a China plate I bought at the Pottery Barn on top of the Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner, though I don’t remember doing this. I have also shaved most of the skin and all of the muscle off her face so that it resembles a skull with a long, flowing main of bond hair flowing from it, which is connected to a full, cold corpse; its eyes are open, the actual eyeballs hanging out of their sockets by their stalks. Most of her chest is indistinguishable from her neck, which looks like ground up meat, her stomach resembles the egg plant and goat cheese at Il Marlboro or some other kind of dog food, the dominant colours red and white and brown. A few of her intestines are smeared across one wall and others are mashed up into balls that lie strewn across the glass coffee table like long blue snakes, mutant worms. The patches of skin left on her body are blue grey, the colour of tin foil. Her vagina has discharged a brownish syrupy fluid that smells like a sick animal, as if that rat had been forced back up in there, had digested or something.’ (Ellis, 1991, p. 344)

We can see from this that Bateman is translating the present experience into a purely rational and almost scientifically detailed analysis. This rationality and considered artistry is certainly not the traditional behaviour associated with a psychopath in the midst of a psychotic episode. Furthermore, this description is far removed from the hyper real imagery laden description of the Lamborghini focused city. However, when we consider the Baudrillard notion of simulation between that of the valued object and that of the experience of the object as real, we see that the former notion of humanity has been removed and so the observer, in this case Bateman, does not recognise the object as human. This would indicate that this is not a detached scientific description but something more disturbing.

We see that for Ellis, this universally human space, formerly believed to be found in our psychology through the discourse of empathy and compassion, ha become free from any fixed binary opposition of meaning associated with symbolism. Instead, this psychological space where knowledge and expression of identity can exist between the relationship of subject and object, forms the new space in which Bateman’s true identity can be given the liberty to construct itself in relation to the many images and values found in the hyper real. Essentially, with nowhere to express and nurture his identity with anything formerly considered human, Bateman is left to alleviate this emptiness at an extreme and primordial level. Although it is perhaps not the intention of Baudrillard or Ellis, to state that the fundamental and base instincts of humanity are to destroy and become self indulgent, Baudrillard suggesting quite the opposite, it is nonetheless in this root state of human existence that Batemen finds himself confronted with a nihilistic void. It has been said that it is within this frustrating paradox that an individual free of the cultural constraints of modernity seek expression, new knowledge, transaction and the merging of agency from a language (Bhabha, 1994). Essentially, without any way of communicating to and from the images of hyper reality, Bateman finds himself exploring a formerly human temporal space without any link to a fundamentally operational humanity or the discourses that guide its meaning and the organic art that constructs both its identity and its significance. Perhaps the most shocking notion that Ellis projects in the supposed realm of a psychotic yet socially successful killer is in the hyper real void of the outer reaching world that anyone can fill with value by engaging in contemporary media.

We can see from this novel that Patrick Bateman does not wish for the murder of other people, nor in another condition would he be capable of it. Essentially, it is that although he wishes to mimic human behaviour and appear human himself it can be seen from Baudrillard’s perspective that he is a computer simulation reacting to the significance of images rather than engaging in the meaning of art. Neither can it be said from this perspective that he is aware of the signification of others, or what identities entail in any sense other than giving out an automated external imagery response that fits a pre determined and desirable response. In essence, this places Bateman as an unthinking robot. One that cannot learn or adapt or use consciousness to question the environment or draw upon his humanity. However, he still questions the void of meaning that the superficial identity to the images of the hyper real has determined in his psyche. Although he uses the images of artificial significance in his description of the environment without any concern for the ideologies of humanity he does register in himself a longing for a humanity that in the absence of recognisable identities seems to reconcile itself with a regression to a state of primordial urge. It would seem then that Ellis is relating to the condition of humanity that Baudrillard describes in his notion of a new humanity of simulation but that he is insistent that humanity, in particular the organically artistic interpretation between subjective experience and the value of objects, requires more than superficial imagery and therefore is more than a construct of discourse. It is perhaps best to keep this idea in mind when considering ourselves within the contemporary world of mass media.

Bibliography

Baudrillard, J., (1968) The System of Objects Taken from: The Order of Simulacra (1993) London: Sage.

Baudrillard, J., (1976) Symbolic Exchange and Death Taken from: The Order of Simulacra (1993) London: Sage.

Bhabha, H., (1994) The Location of Culture New York: Routledge

Ellis, B, E., American Psycho New York: Picador

Searle, J, R,. (1980a) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 3, (3), 417-457.

Turing, A, M,. (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind, 49, 433-460.

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