27 Years of Obscene Ecstasy.


…We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and communication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression…

It is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-the-visible. It is the obscenity of what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information and communication. and communication…
— Jean Baudrillard, “The Ecstasy of Communication”

in an essay from 1983.
I concur. Of course this was evident in 1983 but the effect seems to coincide with Moore's law and has taken an asymptotic route to the present. But in this obscenity can be encountered the sublime. There is an evolutionary flowering taking place in the opening up of secrets. We call these flowers emergent phenomena. How prescient was Baudrillard in calling this Ecstatic? And the obscenity is expected. A circus should have both art and clowns.

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