I completely missed hearing that Jean Baudrillard had died, aged 77. His book – Simulacra and Simulation had an enormous impact on how I viewed the world way back when. Whilst I probably don’t subscribe to all of his ideas now I still think his exploration of created reality, or simulated reality, is particularly relevant. Especially in light of the changes in media and popular culture over the twenty? years since he wrote it.
Probably the only other figure who influenced me more was Gilles Deleuze. I mean who can go past “be the Pink Panther…”?
“The Pink Panther imitates nothing, it reproduces nothing, it paints the world its color, pink on pink; this is its becoming-world, carried out in such a way that it becomes imperceptible itself, asignifying, makes its rupture, its own line of flight, follows its ‘aparallel evolution’ through to the end.”
“Be the Pink Panther and your loves will be like the wasp and the orchid, the cat and the baboon.”
(Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus)
I hadn’t heard he had died, either. Ditto your comments – Simulacra and Simulation was one of the most influential things I read at university (along with Borges’ Labyrinths).