Book Review: Baudrillard’s Pataphysics
Jean Baudrillard. Pataphysics. London: Institute of Pataphysics and Atlas Press, 2005.
Reviewed by Joseph Nechvatal (Professor of Theory of Art at The School of Visual Arts in New York City and The Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA).
The first remarkable thing about Jean Baudrillard’s limited edition text Pataphysics is its passé, handmade, deckle-edged, luxury cover. I say remarkable in that I still tend to identify Baudrillard with the small, slick black covers in which Semiotext(e) introduced him to America; covers which implied more of a techno aesthetic than this solemn neo-gothic one. The second remarkable thing about this book is its slim size: it is only 14 pages long.
I was immediately struck by the nonsensical pairing of a distinguished looking façade that supposedly signified some kind of venerable “authenticity” with an interior teensy-weensy substantive content. But as I gleefully plunged past the books sign-value packaging and into the distinguished Simon Watson Taylor’s English translation (his final) of this circa-1950 text (ostensibly on the subject of Pataphysics, which Baudrillard here defines as “the philosophy of gaseous states”7, as “tautology”8 – the use of redundant language that adds no information and as “the mind’s loftiest temptation”) this pairing made a peculiarly drôle sense, as immediately I started reading about “fake” “stucco” “self-infatuation” and “vast flatulence”, followed soon after by talk of “fake universes”.9
(h/t: Joseph Nechvatal )