Problems of Representation

The concept of representation is at the heart of all postmodern thinking; indeed it could be suggested that is essentially what it is about, and everything that it has to say derives from the application and manipulation of this concept. The notorious phrase by Baudrillard that ‘the [first] Gulf War did not take place’ only makes sense on the presumption that all that could be known about the war was its televisual representations, and these, notoriously, were at the time manipulated to produce the outcome specified by the US alliance. In the past 200 years the representations available through visual images have multiplied exponentially, from the daguerreotype to the internet; nevertheless words, the text, remain the foundation of all representation — not only do they stand on their own as a form of representation, but without them visual images are drained of their meaning.