Thursday, August 16, 2007

Rahu Ketu of Jean Baudrillard 01

I find my favourite thinker Jean Baudrillard's theories uncannily descriptive of  Rahu Ketu functionings.

In a discussion of "Ecstasy and Inertia," Baudrillard defines "Ecstacy" as the quality of things going far outside of or far beyond itself. Objects and events which are continually surpassing themselves: the beautiful as more beautiful than beautiful in fashion, the real as more real than the real in television, sex as more sexual than sex in pornography. Ecstasy is thus hyperreality taken to yet another level.  
This very Ecstasy of objects in their unrivalled proliferation and expansion defines Rahu. The growing architecture of the hyperreal in providing simulated spaces: amusement parks, shopping malls, consumer fantasylands, reality shows, Game Shows... Simulated worlds which are becoming more real than reality itself!!!

Whereas, about photography Baudrillard says that the photograph instantaneously abnegates its depicted subject. The photograph is a a representation that negates the subject and instantly creates an alternative reality. Such pure negation is but the function of Ketu.

Rahu often entails an excessive amplification of worldly, material objects. In Baudrillards text "System of Objects" provides a fascinating viewpoint of this power of material objects. Their ability to transcend the meaning of their pure functionality. Such a hyper real projection of objects purely fall under the domain of Rahu.  Such a world so completely is so very out of control that it surpasses all attempts to understand, conceptualize and control it.

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