Abstract

The Matrix Resurrections functions as a Baudrillardian metacommentary, critiquing its own commodification and the broader system of cultural consumption, and presenting itself as a neutralized sign within the system of signs. By analyzing the film's most metacommentary-ridden scenes and motifs with the understanding that it is intentionally Baudrillardian, this essay reveals how the narrative critiques its own commodification and endless reproduction. It both exposes and participates in the very system it critiques, existing outside the idealism-realism dialectic, presenting a self-aware reflection on the nature of modern media and cultural consumption, and showing that it operates as a neutralized, operationalized sign within the broader system of signs.

Introduction

It’s no secret that The Matrix franchise is Baudrillardian in nature. That is, it aims to express Jean Baudrillard’s thought (though, he was critical of it while he was still alive)1 and, as will be demonstrated, it also exemplifies it. Baudrillard's most famous work, Simulacra and Simulation, is being held by Neo at the beginning of the first Matrix movie - it was also required reading for the cast of the film. The Wachowskis thought it was that important, and understood the film(s) to be articulating, among other things, Baudrillard’s ideas on simulation. It's also no secret that the Wachowskis were not all that interested in filming a fourth Matrix film, and its creation was a top-down decision driven by studio initiatives, rather than because Lana had a plan and desire to do so.2 In case fans weren't aware of this, Lana Wachowski expressed it very clearly by making not-so-subtle metacommentary within the film about the nature of the project and the way it came into being.

This essay is not going to be a scene-by-scene analysis of The Matrix Resurrections to demonstrate how Baudrillardian it is;3 rather, it will focus specifically on the metacommentary discernible from the film once equipped with the background knowledge that the film is intended to be Baudrillardian. As such, a necessary condition for engagement will be an acceptance that the franchise is intentionally, rather than coincidentally, Baudrillardian, as brevity leaves no further room for justification of that than is already done. If accepted, through that lens the metacommentary can be understood in a much more robust way than a mere disgruntled artist’s complaints. Lana Wachowski, it seems, was as concerned about the cultural phenomenon that led to the film as she was with the franchise’s place to her personally.

What will be found through unpacking the metacommentary is that although the franchise has been understood through an idealistic lens in the past, often as an expression of Platonic thought, while taking a realist tone in its expression, The Matrix Resurrections exists outside the dialectic of idealism and realism altogether.

If, as modernism began to shift from idealism to realism, the mechanism was, in part, immediacy,4 then The Matrix Resurrections uses in-film evidence to express that the film itself exists as a cultural product in a solely immediate sense. This is to say that it is outside of the any dialectical tension between idealism and realism entirely, and part of the same system that’s subsumed all such tensions in favor of the neutral and immediate. The film is self-reflective enough to understand that it is not a subversion against the System but is instead operationalized within the very system it exposes.

Baudrillard

To succinctly summarize the work and thought of Jean Baudrillard in a few paragraphs is either impossible or undesirable. A non-comprehensive articulation that is easily understandable does a disservice to Baudrillard's complexity. Therefore, it will have to suffice to focus solely on the concept of simulation here and let other Baudrillardian ideas present themselves naturally.

Simulation in this context refers to representation broadly – as such, the term may be applied to computer simulations (as in The Matrix) but need not be. In this sense, if I build a statue of you, I am simulating your likeness. Baudrillard argues that, over time,5 this process has evolved to the point where the referent has died.

During the Renaissance, artists created landscape paintings or statues of people anchored in a fixed referent, such as the natural order, aiming to simulate profound truths.6 With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the quality of simulation shifted focus. The importance of high fidelity in representation diminished, replaced by concerns over the object’s functional qualities and its place within the broader economic system. The question became: Can I sell this?

As production and commodification accelerated, reproducibility took precedence over the reproduction itself. The focus was no longer on the referent or its use value but on whether an object could be reproduced indefinitely. Thus, the concern shifted from "Can I sell this statue?" to "Can I remake this statue 10 million times?" This evolution describes Baudrillard's early formulations of the procession of simulacra through the first, second, and third orders.

Baudrillard later introduced a fourth order of simulacra.7 This fourth order encompasses simulacra that have no relationship to any referent whatsoever. These simulacra exist solely within a system of signs, where their value and meaning are determined in relation to other signs, independent of any fixed referent. In traditional semiotics, the signification process involves a signifier and a signified, with an assumed fixed referent. Baudrillard contends that in the current age, the referent is unnecessary; the System of signs and differences itself is all that is needed.

This shift marks Baudrillard's departure from Saussurean semiotics,8 culminating in the death of the referent. This occurs as a result of hyperproduction and reproduction. The prefix "hyper-" will appear frequently throughout this essay, as Baudrillard uses it to denote excess very frequently.9 Hyperproduction refers to the excessive reproduction of objects and signs, creating a world where meaning is derived from their endless interplay rather than from any original referent.

The state generated by this cycle was called “hyperreality,” among other things, but as he came to believe in its greater totalizing effect, this term gave way to “Integral Reality.”

Metacommentary

For the analysis of the metacommentary, there are three scenes10 and two recurring motifs that are most telling. The conclusion will zoom out to examine the movie as a whole.

Scenes

Smith Interaction

The first scene containing metacommentary is also the one that likely drew the most attention, as it was the most obvious of the metacommentary since it was well known that the Wachowskis showed no interest in continuing the story of The Matrix into a fourth film – and they’d been asked.

Within The Matrix Resurrections, Neo, now back in the Matrix as Thomas Anderson, is duped into a false life where he is a video game designer of a trilogy titled The Matrix. The three games have, interspersed within them, scenes from the actual Matrix trilogy of movies from our world, and follow the exact same plot with the same characters. These games have been wildly successful and influential culturally, just as the films have been in our culture. It takes very little interpretive power to understand that this an analog for either Lana individually or both of the Wachowskis and their relationship with the Matrix trilogy.

During the scene in question, Neo goes to see his business partner (who is a reincarnated and unaware version of Agent Smith) They have built the game company11 together and Smith lets Neo, who in this world is again Thomas Anderson, know that the studio has, quote, "decided to make a sequel to the trilogy," unquote. Neo is surprised and Smith continues, "They inform me they're going to do it with or without us.” Neo is again surprised, and Smith continues, "I know you said the story was over for you, but that's the thing about stories. They never really end, do they? We're still telling the same stories we've always told just with different names, different faces. And I have to say, I'm kind of excited. After all these years, back to where it all started, back to The Matrix."

This is a rather on-the-nose commentary about the process that Lana went through. There's the idea of a creative endeavor being thrust upon the creator by studio executives with little regard for the fact that they’re the creator and the narrative is over. And this is what occurs in the Integral Reality (or totalized hyperreal): the cycle of production and subsequent commodification, then reproduction, and commodification, then further reproduction, and further reproduction, ad infinitum continues despite anything so irrelevant to the System like an artist’s belief of the closure of a narrative. We can see broader evidence of this outside of The Matrix. Consider the third-order simulacra, which are produced with the concept of reproducibility in mind prior to production – as in, the idea of reproduction precedes and determines the (material) production12 - and consider the prevalence now of cinematic universes. There cannot simply be a Spider-Man movie. It is a Spider-Man movie that must be connected with other properties13 within the broader Marvel cinematic universe. The same goes for Batman, for Star Wars, and many other series attempting to follow suit.

There is, at the decision-making level, a lack of concern with the story itself. Whatever internal qualities the creators may have thought were present in The Matrix are irrelevant in its reproduction. This is the operationalization of The Matrix as a sign. It does not exist in its own right nor refer to some profound truth – at least not once it’s been subsumed into the System. It is then understood as a part of that system. It is reproduced with an understanding of the sort of cultural impact it had and the cultural associations with the brand. Rather than asking, “What is The Matrix?” the System asks, “What is The Matrix as a cultural phenomenon?” Whatever that is, if it can be identified, delimited, and reproduced, it will be. And again, any internal meaning the Wachowski’s may associate with it is of no concern – as demonstrated by the studio being willing to do it with or without the original creators.  

Developer Meetings

If the Smith interaction is the most on-the-nose metacommentary, the developer meetings that occur shortly after are certainly the second most obvious, and are certainly the most complex of the three scenes to analyze. These meetings occur as the project begins, and Thomas Anderson/Neo begins attending a series of meetings with the team helping to develop the idea of the game. The sequence begins with a woman handing out the focus group analysis in a (very neat) packet – she then points out the keyword association with the brand. The words are less important than the implications she associates with the words, “which I think are great things to keep in mind as you begin working on Matrix 4.” She then makes eye contact with AnderNeo and continues, “And who knows how many more?” There is, in those few lines, the whole of the problem – the implications have a two-fold effect: first, to begin development with the possibility of “many more” in mind makes The Matrix a simulacrum proper, that is, a simulacrum of the third order. Second, the idea of what is "on-brand" and "the brand" demonstrate the commodification of the series (and this is not the last time it is referred to as “brand”). It is no longer The Matrix as such, it is the brand, $\left\{ The\ Matrix \right\}$, and the idea of “brand” is part of the broader system, the broader exchange of signs.

The brand is understood to be the category within which all subsequent designations take place. Thus, one were to argue that “this is fundamentally an idealist project about the redemptive hope of transcending illusion through gnosis,” that argument is subordinate to the broader category of “brand.” If one argued, by contrast, that “this is a dystopian, highly realist analysis of technological determinism or accelerationism,” that argument is still within the framing of the engagement – in this case, “identification of the brand.” All the developer’s debates are subordinate to the frame, as is demonstrated by the sequence.14

One developer states that it’s different because it “effed with your head.” His sentiment is affirmed by another who follows, “People want us up in their grey space, switching their synaptic ‘WTF’ light on.”

These developer meetings are happening with a rising cyclical tension, interspersed periodically within a montage of Neo running on a treadmill, showering, taking blue pills, laying in bed, looking out a window, getting a coffee, then being back in the developer meetings and listening to all of them talk – wash, rinse, repeat. The cycle continues over and over with slight variation. The initial developer is again shown saying, “What made Matrix different? It effed with your head.” He is again supported by the developer who says, “People want us up in their grey space, switching their synaptic ‘What the hell is going on here?’ light on.”

But these meetings are “not” a monolith! Another developer offers a dissenting voice, "I didn’t love the first one, like some of you. And frankly, I’ve got zero tolerance for anything that requires a syllabus and a highlighter. I like my games big, loud and dumb.” He is, in turn, supported by Jude, who seems to be Neo’s chief “handler,” who says “We need guns! Lots of guns.” But, they are both contrasted by another developer who argues that “Mindless action is not on-brand.” The first developer agrees, stating that it’s “mind-porn. Philosophy in shiny…” and the sentence is continued by the second developer, “…tight PVC.”

Other opinions are that it is about trans-politics, crypto-fascism, capitalist exploitation. Self-awareness is shown by a developer stating that “This cannot be another reboot, retread, regurgitated…” but the “I like it dumb” developer cuts her off with a tongue-in-cheek, “Why not? Reboots sell.” Jude comes in and claims that it’s all about bullet time, which is referencing the revolutionary filming technique used in the first Matrix film where Neo is dodging bullets in slow motion. Here, Jude understands the chief association as an innovative techne.15

Of note is that there is no point at which Neo injects an opinion. Barthes’ “death of the author”16 is, evidently, at play in these meetings. That is, the meaning of The Matrix might be understood as having less to do with authorial intent as it does with audience reception – the “inner author” of the player (or reader, viewer, etc.). However, “might” is the operative term here - if this were an earnest engagement by the players, it might be so, but we (the viewers of Resurrections) understand that these developers are not earnest fans, but handlers put in place to control Neo. Thus, we know that these meetings occur for his benefit, and are therefore spectacles.17 They are faux debates, performative in nature. To put it in terms The Matrix might: if you've chosen a side in any part of these debates, that choice is an illusion. Though, here, it’s not because you've already chosen one of the sides; it's that neither of the sides is the relevant question. Rather, the relevant question is, “What are the conditions for the debate?” The episteme – the conditions of the possibility of knowledge.18 In this sense, in this context, it is defined by the framing, “the brand.” Neo intuitively understands this. His voice, were he to chime in, would not be one of transcendence or subversion, but part of the System. Similar to how, if one engages in political debates on social media, they could say, "Golly, there's a problem with this and that." Do any among us believe that social media companies can be threatened by content of “this and that,” should it be controversial in some way? Controversy conjured within their domain is subsumed into their system – in this example, it is explicitly commodified financially.19

Herein, the brand is the overarching category. No matter what you decide, the final decision is that The Matrix is a brand to be traded. In-universe, “the choice is an illusion” refers to choices having already been made by the individual, and the event (taking a pill) is an expression of that choice. In the metacommentary, the illusion of choice refers to choices having already been made by the System. All of these debates are taking place with an a priori understanding that there is no option for The Matrix being anything other than a brand. It could not possibly be that it is philosophy as such - it is a brand associated with philosophy. It cannot be action as such – it is a brand associated with action. The ontological status of The Matrix is rendered a non-issue, without possibility of becoming an oppositional term in relation to the System.

Bugs

Finally, the next scene is perhaps the most succinct and pointed articulation of the nature of the System – at least as it’s understood by Baudrillard and Lana Wachowski. Neo has only recently woken up when Bugs comes in and asks him how he's doing. He then muses that if the plug in his arm is actually real, then they took his life and turned it into a video game. He continues, "How am I doing? I don't know. I don't even know how to know." Bugs replies by summarizing exactly what the System is and why it cannot be understood as an escape fantasy or similarly idealistic sense, nor as merely a grounded realist narrative. Integral Reality, or the hegemonous system, or the System of signs, or simply the System, or the Matrix, or the more outdated term “hyperreality”20 obfuscates the designation between the real and the simulated, such that no one can tell which is which.21 Bugs says, "That's it, isn't it? If we don't know what's real, we can't resist. They took your story, something that meant so much to people like me, and turned it into something trivial. That's what the Matrix does. It weaponizes every idea, every dream, everything that's important to us. Where better to bury the truth inside something as ordinary as a video game?"

This is precisely how Baudrillard conceptualizes the System. Over his career, Baudrillard became increasingly pessimistic about the possibilities of subversion22 as he came to fear that all subversion – any attempt at being an oppositional term to the System – becomes part of it.23 Consider trying to gain a mass following to overthrow the technocratic system through some intellectual revolution. You become a provocateur and a powerful speaker – in becoming popular, you would be filmed; that film, that representation of you on camera, would then become newsworthy, then social media worthy, and once again be subsumed into the System. Whatever depth or narrative journey you take your listeners on when you speak to them can be contextualized and categorized by the System itself.

You can be designated as a provocative speaker of a particular political bent. In that delimited categorization, people can argue against you, people can argue for you, and all those arguments can reasonably take place within the same medium that you’re trying to oppose. This has become so prolific that very few who come to interact with you (because we’re all connected to our phones – as Elon Musk suggests, we’re all functionally cyborgs) can interact with you without considering your place in reference to the rest of the System. The System is internalized such that listener’s associations of your speech its systemic implications become inevitable. When folks hear (to raise a controversial example) Donald Trump speak, there is little ability for any American to hear his words without either a negative or positive reaction in accordance with the representative images of him that have been presented to us by the political media. The polar opposition of the representations needn’t be taken into account, as all their opinions have been presented with the idea of engagement, proliferation, and vis-à-vis, reproducibility, in mind. Thus, they’re simulacra of opinions, even if stated as earnestly as the pundits know how. Whatever earnestness there is, is so tangled up with, not a lie, but enough performance that it may as well not be earnestness at all. The question of earnestness is deferred. It is no longer the category by which the message need be understood.

Intuitively, when people speak sensationally on camera, most of us understand that it’s content, and that content is driven by engagement, and that engagement is driven by (negative) emotions. This whole calculus being intuited by us citizens of the Information Age is part of the internalization of the System itself. The Matrix, therefore, fails as a "pure event" – an event absent of systemically-imposed meanings – and is merely transmitted as a sign absent of referent.24 The term used by Bugs is “weaponized” – true enough, but Baudrillard might have used the term “operationalized.” Either way, it’s in the employ of the System. It need not be used against anyone – this is too oppositional. The idea of war is roughly irrelevant here. It's not like the first three movies where there was a clear war. The war is over. The fight is over. Why did they bother to wake Neo up at all? There was no great reason, no war going on requiring a legendary warrior. He was a novelty. He was a relic of a past time when there seemed to be something happening, a time prior to their present neutrality. They have a discomfort with the Matrix that’s affecting them in a way that’s harder to place. All of this is part of the metacommentary of the defanging or (to use a more Baudrillardian term) neutralizing25 any oppositional or potentially revolutionary or subversive acts.

Now, The Matrix as a movie franchise, like The Matrix video game franchise within the movie, is trivialized by its commodification and extension beyond the limits of the story for the sake of commodification. It is turned into something trivial. Now it is aware of just how trivial it is.

Motifs

Binaries

Binaries are represented in the movie both visually and through explicit dialogue a fair amount. When Bugs offers new-Morpheus the binary choice of the blue and red pill, he replies, “You call this a choice?” Bugs replies with a tangent about how, when she was first offered them, she rejected binary thinking as reductionistic, and was told that she was missing the point because the choice is, in fact, an illusion.26 She had already made the choice and already know what they have to do, echoing sentiments from the original trilogy. Neo is initially working on a game called Binary before he is interrupted to begin The Matrix 4 project. When the Analyst asks Neo about a psychotic episode (since all of his breaks with the Matrix are contextualized as hallucinatory episodes), he describes the most recent one, and when asked how he feels, Neo says, " What was I feeling? I felt either I’m having a mental breakdown again or I’m living inside a computer-generated reality that has imprisoned me… again." The Analyst responds, “Not much of a choice,” then continues, " Maybe it’s not as binary as that. Maybe there are other ways to understand what happened."

Obviously, since the Wachowskis are transgender, this motif likely, in part, reflects a rejection of the gender binary.27 However, the broader idea of binaries is part of the ongoing project of post-modern thought. Binaries were seen as a near-ubiquitous presence in Western philosophy for time immemorial – good and evil, hot and cold. These dialectical binaries were so pervasive that they led many post-modern thinkers to problematize them.28 To channel Derrida, in the binary of man and woman, one term is generally privileged over the other, with man holding a higher status.29 This aligns with the view of Foucault and other post-modern, post-Marxist thinkers who often conceptualize the world in terms of the necessity to disrupt problematized binaries.

Their methods for doing so were varied. Foucault focused on the oppressor and oppressed binary and sought to stand outside and critique the System30 rather than act as a revolutionary in accordance with his Marxist roots. Derrida sought to complicate binaries through a complex strategy.31 Baudrillard, by contrast, was less interested in conceptual binaries and, though his view of them is somewhat Derridaean, had less of a moral impetus to problematize binaries. Instead, he observed that all the binaries other thinkers identify are subsumed by the System. The signifier-signified binary is no longer relevant with the death of the referent. The oppressor-oppressed binary, involving the consolidation of power under Foucault, is no longer relevant as power itself is not something an individual or group of individuals can grasp.32 Baudrillard believes that the System hegemonizes, leaving no easy categories like the dominants and the dominated.33 The oppressor-victim binary is set aside – we are all at once participating in and perpetuating the System.34

The Matrix Resurrections channels this Baudrillardian sense and perhaps additionally the rest of the post-modern sense of problematizing binaries. Certainly, the Baudrillardian sense is present in that collective participation is a part of it. Who are the enemies? The machines? That can’t be, since some of the programs can manifest in the real world and assist the humans greatly. In Resurrections, humans and sentient programs have built a civilization side-by-side. There are humans like Neo and Trinity who are part human and part machine, living unnaturally extended lives.35 In the context of the movie franchise itself, Neo is not the mere victim of having his voice taken away.36 He sat in those meeting rooms just like everybody else, prepared to perpetuate the commodification of his beloved Matrix, just as Lana, unwilling to let the series fall into the studio’s hands, became a part of the institution distributing it.

Repetition (with variation)

The second motif is repetition, an even more prolific motif than binaries. Smith references it, stating that "we tell the same stories over and over again." The meeting’s montage involves the developer meeting dialogues, repeating the same thing over and over with slight variations. The initial modal used to train new-Morpheus, is running on a loop with slight variations each time to train the new Morpheus. There are several more examples. Repetition as a motif articulates the idea of reproduction. Hyperproduction is production pushed to excess. Franchises are pushed to be reproducible and are reproduced on and on until they are fat (obese, rather) with content.

Reproducibility is the norm, and whether it’s Star Wars, Marvel, DC, or The Matrix, we’re no longer surprised when series and franchises are produced ad infinitum. A rather tragic example of this in the video game world is the Super Smash Bros series. Sakurai, the creator, had intended the series to end with both the second game, Super Smash Bros: Melee, and the third, Super Smash Bros: Brawl. The Game Theorists are the most noteworthy in the fandom to express the popular belief that the final bosses of the story mode represent Sakurai himself. First, it’s Master Hand, the disembodied hand controlling all of the characters (toys imbued with life). Second, Crazy Hand is added, the manic, spazzing counterpart to Master Hand. Third, Tabuu, a godlike being more closely resembling a traditional video game boss. However, by Super Smash Bros for Wii U, or “SSB4,” the final boss is Master Core, a swirling mass of black, dust-like material that bursts out of Master Hand. Master Core has several highly aggressive, highly chaotic forms, but once they’re all defeated, its circular core emerges. This sphere emerges, floats to the center of the field, and stops fighting. The final sequence of the fight has the music fade to a melancholic ambience, with the player forced to beat this entity refusing to defend itself. When it’s hit, it recenters itself to take another blow. Sakurai has, just as the Wachowskis, expressed a desire to discontinue the series. He has expressed sadness that as soon as a new game comes out, fans immediately assume a sequel is coming, failing to focus on the game he’s just given them. This battle with Master Core is popularly understood by the fandom as telling his story – a story concluding with his struggle ending, accepting whatever is done to him. He’s rendered inert – neutralized – on his realization that the cycle of production is unstoppable. The treadmill, for Sakurai, is to end one project and immediately return to the meeting room to begin its sequel, just like Lana, and just like AnderNeo.

The Movie as A Whole

Lana Wachowski has crafted a very meticulous and dense series of metacommentaries, and there are many more examples that could be expressed in a lengthier analysis. But overall, there is a clear expression of the movie itself as part of a brand and a franchise commodified and neutralized as a potentially subversive force. That is, awareness of the System is not a threat to it, so long as that awareness is trivialized, just like the Matrix was in The Matrix video game trilogy within The Matrix Resurrections movie.37

Once trivialized (neutralized), it’s not necessary that people mock or laugh at the idea that we live in a simulation or a reality where simulation is indistinguishable from reality. Rather, these ideas are engaged with at arm's length or as part of some temporary immersive experience for aesthetic pleasure.38 One could easily imagine having a conversation with somebody and trying to argue that perhaps we live in a simulation. Someone who is only partially interested might say, "Oh, like The Matrix," and you'd say, "Yeah, like The Matrix," and they would say, "Oh yeah, I like those movies. Wouldn't that be crazy?" and then the conversation loses steam and fizzles out. You might equally have a very engaging conversation, but once the social space within which the discussions of the simulation occur have tainted its associations with triviality, it is a trivial thing engaged with as though it might be true – quite different from a controversial thing engaged with as though it might be true. The latter stokes the revolutionary impulse, the former is a titillating coffeeshop conversation.

For instance, if someone says, "I hold this particular religious belief" or "I hold this particular political belief," and you respond in a smiling, nodding, therapeutic, and patronizing way, saying, "Oh, that's very good. If you'll follow me, I'll show you we have a room where people who believe just like you love to talk about that sort of thing." Then you take them into a building with a series of rooms, pointing them out as you go. "That's the room where people who believe the opposite of you speak, and this is the room where people who like vampire movies talk about vampire movies. I think it's just great that we can have these kinds of conversations that we're passionate about." Here, not by argumentation or direct opposition but by trivialization and contextualization within an aesthetic of patronization, you implicitly convey that, "Oh, okay, this belief isn't controversial and is therefore not threatening." In a world where a plurality of beliefs is institutionalized,39 the threatening or revolutionary thought of self-awareness of the System is neutralized.

The Matrix Resurrections views itself as just such a non-threat. The metacommentary indicate that it is not, in the mind of its creator, either idealist or realist. It is a neutralized, operationalized sign swirling about the System of signs that demanded its creation and that it (and its predecessors) sought to expose. Despite mixed, often negative reviews of the film, it has come full circle since the first, and long since left behind those Platonic traces that Baudrillard found so problematic. What’s left? The sobering reality that there is nothing left to expose, as nothing was being hidden. I conclude with a relevant quote from the (original) series finale of another great SF franchise, The X-Files – from Mulder’s final speech after his Kangaroo court trial:

Liars do not fear the truth if there are enough liars.

Bibliography

Barthes, Roland. “Barthes, Roland the Death of the Author.” Tufts. Accessed July 2, 2024. https://sites.tufts.edu/english292b/files/2012/01/Barthes-The-Death-of-the-Author.pdf.

Baudrillard, Jean, and C. Turner. The illusion of the end. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994.

Baudrillard, Jean, and Chris Turner. The intelligence of evil, or, the Lucidity Pact. London etc.: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Baudrillard, Jean, and Chris Turner. The spirit of terrorism. London: Verso, 2013.

Baudrillard, Jean, and James Benedict. The System of objects. London: Verso, 2020.

Baudrillard, Jean, and Sheila Faria Glaser. Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2020.

Baudrillard, Jean, and Sylvère Lotringer. Forget foucault. New York, N.Y: Semiotext(e), 1987.

Baudrillard, Jean, Sylvère Lotringer, and Ames Hodges. The agony of power. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2010.

Baudrillard, Jean. For a critique of the political economy of the sign. London: Verso, 2019.

Baudrillard, Jean. The Gulf War did not take place Jean Baudrillard. transl. and with an introd. by Paul Patton. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press, n.d.

Chomsky, Noam, and Michel Foucault. The chomsky-foucault debate: On human nature. New York: New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2006.

Cussen, James. “Why Baudrillard Hated The Matrix,” Medium, April 15, 2022, https://medium.com/the-living-philosophy/why-baudrillard-hated-the-matrix-6052010375cd

Eshelman, Raoul. “Performatism, or the End of Postmodernism.” Anthropoetics 6, no. 2 (2000). https://doi.org/http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0602/perform.htm.

Eshelman, Raoul. “Performatism, or the End of Postmodernism.” Anthropoetics 6, no. 2 (2000). https://doi.org/http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0602/perform.htm.

Foucault, Michel. Reissue (May 1994)ed. New York , NY: Vintage, 1994.

Genosko, Gary. Baudrillard and signs: Signification ablaze. London: Routledge, 2014.

Gunkel, David J. Deconstruction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2021.

Haraway, Donna J. “A Cyborg Manifesto.” Manifestly Haraway, April 1, 2016, 3–90. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816650477.003.0001.

Hegarty, Paul. Jean Baudrillard live theory Paul Hegarty. London: Continuum, 2014.

Rosa, Jorge Martins. “A Misreading Gone Too Far? Baudrillard Meets Philip K. Dick.” Science Fiction Studies 35, no. 1 (March 2008): 60–71.

Schaefer, Heike. “The Quest for Immediacy in American Literature and Media Culture.” Essay. In American Literature and Immediacy: Literary Innovation and the Emergence of Photography, Film, and Television, 1–28. Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Taylor, Charles. A secular age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022.

Tomlinson, John. “The Condition of Immediacy.” The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy, 2007, 72–93. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446212738.n4.