Baudrillard's Nonrepresentational Theory

Burn the Signs and Journey without Maps

Bibliographic Data

ID4476802
AuthorsRichard G Smith (0000-0002-3571-5888)
Year2003
Volume21
Issue1
Pages67-84
Publication date2003-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/d280t
OpenAlexW2136661757
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited37

Can we burn the signs and journey without maps? In other words, can we travel from representational theories, through Baudrillard's critique of representation, to forms of theory that are somehow nonrepresentational? In this paper I hijack and go beyond Baudrillard's concepts of the precession and orders of simulacra to illustrate two main things: first, how the history of geographical thought has been one of representational theory, where there was seen to be a relationship, and then commutation, of theory and the real world; second, how representational theories are perhaps out of tune, unable to explain adequately, or change, our digital and commodity-sign soaked culture of simulacra, simulations, and reproductions. Overall, I attempt to show clearly how, through his poststructuralist critique of representation, Baudrillard is challenging us to rethink theory as doubly nonrepresentational

Aesthetics · Commodity · Economics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Sign (mathematics · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Art, Technology, and Culture · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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