Automatism

Definition

Automatism is Baudrillard's term (The System of Objects, 1968, Part C) for the technical connotation that dominates the modern object's "mechanistic triumphalism": the ideal that a perfected object is one that "works by itself." Its myth is the opposite of its technical reality: "automating machines means sacrificing a very great deal of potential functionality… Far from having any intrinsic technical advantages, automatism always embodies the risk of arresting technical advance." Automatic perfection "amounts to a closing-off, to a sort of functional self-sufficiency which exiles man to the irresponsibility of a mere spectator." Automatism is the object's imagined autonomy, and therefore "personalization dreamt in terms of the object" — the most finished form of the inessential (see personalization).

Key Claims

Automatism is the major concept of the modern object's mythology. "What automatism means is that the object, in its particular function, takes on the connotation of an absolute." The elimination of the starting-handle is Simondon's example: it makes the mechanism more complicated yet is presented "as progress, as a sign of modernity."
Automation sacrifices functionality and arrests development. "In order to automate a practical object, it is necessary to stereotype it in its function, thus making it more fragile"; "so long as an object has not been automated it remains susceptible of redesign, of self-transcendence through incorporation into a larger functional whole."
It is a "new anthropomorphism." "Because the automated object 'works by itself', its resemblance to the autonomous human being is unmistakable… it is no longer his gestures, his energy, his needs and the image of his body that man projects into automated objects, but instead the autonomy of his consciousness, his power of control, his own individual nature, his personhood."
The desire for automatism precedes objective practice. "The desire for automatism is there first – it takes priority over objective practice"; "automatism is king, and its fascination is indeed so powerful precisely because it is not that of a technical rationality."
Automatism is personalization's sublime form. "Automatism is simply personalization dreamt in terms of the object. It is the most finished, the most sublime form of the inessential."
It opens the door to gadgetry. "Automatism per se is simply a technical deviation, but it opens the door to a whole world of functional delusion" (see gadget).

Key Thinkers

Jean Baudrillard — the concept's author: automatism as technical connotation and imaginary autonomy.
Gilbert Simondon (not yet paged) — the philosophy of the technical object Baudrillard draws on (the starting-handle example; "the unconditional belief in progress").
Lewis Mumford (not yet paged) — the machine as "a lapse of function which is but one step away from paralysis."
Lars Spuybroek — a contemporary counter-register: digital fabrication and an aesthetics of vitality (see the machinic register).
Mark Goulthorpe — the responsive-surface register where the object's autonomy is reconceived.

Gadget — automatism's degenerate offspring: pseudo-functional objects.
Robot — automation's mythic completion.
Functionalist Myth — the belief automatism substantiates.
Personalization — automatism as the inessential's sublime form.
Gestural System — the human gesture automatism displaces.
Simulation / Hyperreality — the simulacrum motive in automation ("a simulacrum of power").

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

The System of Objects (Baudrillard 1968) — the concept's defining source (Part C): "Technical Connotation: Automatism"; "'Functional' Transcendence"; automatism's relation to fashion, personalization and the imaginary.
Jean Baudrillard: The Defence of the Real (Butler 1999) — the book-length secondary study that reads Baudrillard "in his own terms": the paradox of the sign (paradox-of-the-sign), simulation as the realization rather than the loss of the real (simulation-hyperreality), seduction as the limit to simulation, and the doubling power of theory (doubling, the-real, double-strategy).

Open Questions

Does the smart device / autonomous system realize automatism's dream, or finally expose its irrationality (see automation, computational-design)?
Baudrillard's claim that automation arrests technical progress is an empirical thesis about industrial design. How does it fare against the later history of automation?
If automatism is "personalization dreamt in terms of the object," is the autonomous agent (AI, robotics) the object's fantasy of personhood — and what does that make the human?