ABSTRACT
One of the keys to Baudrillard’s work is the analysis of technology explored in his first published book, The System of Objects, which is the focus here. This chapter first examines Baudrillard’s notions of speed, “fuzzy” logic and automatism, and then goes on to examine the “gizmo” and the “gadget”, thinking about the ways in which the technological object becomes designed according to human fantasy and desire. Technology is then related to some early versions of Baudrillard’s notion of “the symbolic”, and the argument concludes with a mapping out of the new technological space of the “hypermarket”.
