This realistic image, however, does not catch at all what…

This realistic image, however, does not catch at all what really is, but what should not be - death and misery - what should not exist, from our moral and humanistic point of view. And at the same time making an aesthetic and commercial, perfectly immoral use and abuse of this misery. Images that actually testify, behind their pretended “objectivity”, of a deep denial of the real, and of an equal denial of the image - assigned to present what does not even want to be represented, assigned to the rape of the real by burglary.

Sourced, The Violence of the Image
(2003)

Other Jean Baudrillard Quotes

It is perhaps not a surprise that photography developed as a technological medium in the industrial age, when reality started to disappear. It is even perhaps the disappearance of reality that triggered this technical form. Reality found a way to mutate into an image. - View Quote Details on It is perhaps not a surprise that photography developed as…
Particularly in the case of all professional of press-images which testify of the real events. In making reality, even the most violent, emerge to the visible, it makes the real substance disappear. It is like the Myth of Eurydice : when Orpheus turns around to look at her, she vanishes and returns to hell. That is why, the more exponential the marketing of images is growing the more fantastically grows the indifference towards the real world. Finally, the real world becomes a useless function, a collection of phantom shapes and ghost events. We are not far from the silhouettes on the walls of the cave of Plato. - View Quote Details on Particularly in the case of all professional of press-images which…
There are only a few images that are not forced to provide meaning, or have to go through the filter of a specific idea. - View Quote Details on There are only a few images that are not forced…
The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning. (p. 30) - View Quote Details on The need to speak, even if one has nothing to…
Dying is nothing. You have to know how to disappear. Dying comes down to a biological chance and that is of no consequence. Disappearing is of a far higher order of necessity. You must not leave it to biology to decide when you will disappear. To disappear is to pass into an enigmatic state which is neither life nor death. Some animals know how to do this, as do savages, who withdraw while still alive, from the sight of their own people. - View Quote Details on Dying is nothing. You have to know how to disappear…
The only thing worse than being bored is being boring. - View Quote Details on The only thing worse than being bored is being boring.
The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is none, that is to say, the continuation of Nothingness.( essay -”Radical Thought”) - View Quote Details on The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact…
Challenge, and not desire, lies at the heart of seduction. (p. 57) - View Quote Details on Challenge, and not desire, lies at the heart of seduction…
So-called “realist” photography does not capture the “what is.” Instead, it is preoccupied with what should not be, like the reality of suffering for example. - View Quote Details on So-called “realist” photography does not capture the “what is.” Instead,…
If the thought enunciates an object as a truth, it is only as a challenge to this object’s own self-fulfillment. ( essay -”Radical Thought”) - View Quote Details on If the thought enunciates an object as a truth, it…