Saturday, September 30, 5pm Galerie Rabus

Christine Blättler
The virtue of similitude

Jean Baudrillard introduced the simulacrum as a prominent notion of the digital age. Gilles Deleuze pitted it against an authoritarian idea of identities and celebrated its subversive fancy-freeness: the simulacrum does not refer to a norm or an ideal or an essence, it is always a singular. Virtual and without reference, it does not have to evaporate. In fact, it can count on an effective power pushing for realisation. Rosi Braidotti gave the free-floating notion a body. But there is no need to nomadise: the simulacrum can establish relationships, form alliances and create its own order. It can build on similitude. Similarity is neither normative nor exclusive; it creates links by emphasising mutualities. Thus ideas such as “Europe” or “woman” come into existence from below – wherever individuals (each one a singular) have their simultaneous and imperfect being and work on a common project.


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