Jean Baudrillard - The violence of the image

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Question : do some images, some exceptional images escape from this double violence - that of the image and that done to the image ? Is it any chance to escape from the hegemonic overflow of the visual surrounding as to recover the original power of the image - the vital power of illusion ?

At first we will point at three forms of violence. The primary form is that of aggression,of oppression, of rape and spoiling : the unilateral violence of the most powerful. Another form is that of historical, of critical violence, the violence of the negative

and the transgression,of revolt and revolution (included maybe the violence of analysis and interpretation). Both are determined forms of violence - effects that are related to specific causes and to whatever form of transesendenese, be it that of power, of history or of meaning.

These are, I would say, the violence of the first type and of the second type. But now we have to deal with a violence of the third type, a very different one. More radical and subtle : the violence of deterrence, of consensus and esontrol, of hyperregulation and deregulation altogether - the violence of the virtual, a metaviolence in some way. Violence of forced consensus and interaction, which are like the plastic surgery of the social. Therapeutic, genetic, communica-tional and informational violence, but, first of all, NEW the violence of transparency, which tend to eradicate, by the way of prophylaxis, of physical and mental regu-lation, the very roots of evil, of negativity and singularity (including the ultimate form of singularity, which is death itself). Violence of a general extradition of conflict, of death. Violence which paradoxically puts an end to the violence itself, and which therefore cannot be balanced except with radical dene-gation, with pure abreaction to the whole state of things - a pure violence without object anymore, without determination.

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THE VIDEO VERSION OF BAUDRILLARD'S LECTURE HERE

another ESSAY BY BAUDRILLARD

The Violence of the Global