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Nicholas Zurbrugg Perhaps I could begin by asking you about the widespread influence of your writings upon artists and art critics. Are you surprised by this reaction?
Jean Baudrillard Well yes, because in many respects aesthetics and art have never really entered into my area of research. My interest in the object has always been for the non-aesthetic object, the banal object, or the metaphysical object. I've never really been concerned with the aesthetic object. So yes, I was astonished by the enthusiasm with which artists took me up as a point of reference, along with all the terminology like simulacra, simulation, and so on. I was surprised because, first and foremost, simulation refers to a world without reference, from which all reference has disappeared. But on second thoughts, one might think of art criticism as something which tries to give a sense to works, while at the same time showing that they are beyond all interpretation. And in that respect I'm a kind of art critic who is not so much concerned with art, but who-in a certain way-transforms the real, or the hyper-real, into a sort of artwork. My relationship with the banal or the hyper-real is the same relationship that one might have with a work of art. I offer it the kind of visual, sensual, analytical attention that one could also bring to the work of art. So perhaps the thing that artists find interesting in my writings is not so much their aesthetic quality or their aesthetic analysis, as the process by which their analysis of simulation and the hyper-real gives a meaning to something which ought not to have any meaning. And in reality... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline