A Study Of Jean Baudrillard's Photographic Thought

Jean Baudrillard was one of the most influential French postmodern philosophers,sociological theorists.Moreover,he was also a wonderful photographer who made great achievements in plhotography.Baudrillard's theory has brought new research perspectives to philosophy,sociology.aesthetics and art studies at home and abroad.However,as a result of less attention paid to Baudrillard'sphotographic thought and the lack of literature mater-ials in the domestic academia,the current research results on Baudrillard's photographic thought are quiet few and limited.In order to improve the development of researches on Baudrillard's photographic thought,post-modern photography theory and visual culture.this thesis used many research methods including text reading,image analysis and so on.On the basis of theoretical texts and previous studies,from the core view of "photography-is the art of disappearance",social and historical background and relevant photographic works were associated with this thesis so as to explain Baudrillard's photographic thought in a better degree.This thesis consists of six parts in total:Introduction,four chapters and Conclusion.Introduction includes the reasons for the selection of the thesis,literature review,current research status.research methods and basic ideas of this thesis.The first part of Chapter One mainly introduces Baudrilard's life as well as his theory.The second part introduces his activities and achievements about photography.Moereover,this part summarizes main text sources of Baudrillard's photographic thought briefly.Chapter Two is the interpretation of Baudrillard's photographic thought in detail.The first part of this chapter summarizes "photography is the art of disappearance" as the core concept of his photography and explains its meaning.Then,with"disappearance of the Subject"as foundation of his photographic thought,this chapter decomposes"the art of disappearance"into four parts:"Disappearance of the Reality","Disappearance of Techniques","Disappearance of the Subject"and"Disappearance of the Object".In these parts,the process and basic characteristics of photography and the relationship between the photographer and objects are discussed.At the same time,this chapter combines with a number of Baudrillard's representative works for interpreting and evaluating his thought of photography in a better way.Chapter Three mainly analyzes the causes of Baudrillard's lard's photographic thought,Firstly,his photographic thought originated from his own philosophical thought and highly critical artistic thought.Secondly.Baudrillard's photographic practice is the most direct source of his photographic thought.Thirdly,some photographic theorists also had made great influence on his photographic thought.Chapter Four is the overall evaluation and reflection on Baudrillard's photography.On one hand,the value made by his photographic practice and thought is worth being affirmed in the history of photography.The first part of this chapter links his photographic works and thought to the history of photography so as to summarize his innovative significance in both practical techniques and ideology.On the other hand,we should notice that there are certain contradictions and conflicts between Baudrillard's photographic thought and specific photographic practice in the real world since it is unrealistic to abandon Subject position completely and don't use any techniques in photographic practice at all.This thesis believes that Baudrillard's photographic thought and his photographic practice have attached great importance to studies on the field of aesthetics and art.Further,Baudrillard's photographic thought not only reflects social existence and life experience nowadays but also explores the destiny of culture and art in the future.