pre class blog 9/26

I found the article by Baudrillard to be very interesting. The idea of images and how we see images and how they influence our thoughts is really fascinating to me. The quote, “ reality and fiction are inextricable, and the fascination with the attack is primarily a fascination with the imaginary,” I think really was a good way to start talking about the article. The attack on 9/11 is obviously a terrorist attack and when you see images of the attack like the on below, you relate this image to a sign of terrorism. Taken with context you think terrorism, but without any context and if you just saw this image without any previous knowledge of what had happened the image would mean something completely different. The image might just be a building on fire but it would no way make you think of terrorism. This doesn’t just go along though with this one image but out of any photograph you often get a false sense of reality. Even on Facebook when you see images of people smiling and seeming to be so happy, this reality could be false. People in this image could have had a bad night, or might not really be all that happy. Context is what gives us this reality. Baudrillard also said, “ the image consumes the event, in the sense that it absorbs it and offers it for consumption.” This idea once again says that the image you’re seeing basically tells you the story through what you are seeing. It takes in any previous knowledge and any ideas you have and incorporates them into what you are looking at. I think that this is an article I enjoyed because it brings in a very current topic and uses the idea of terrorism to explain a point that Baudrillard is trying to make.