If I were asked to characterize the present state of affairs, I would describe it as "after the orgy." The orgy in question was the moment when modernity exploded upon us, the moment of liberation in every sphereà We have pursued every avenue in the production and effective overproduction of objects, signs, messages, ideologies and satisfactions. Now everything has been liberated, the chips are down, and we find ourselves faced collectively with the big question: What do we do now [that] the orgy is over?
- Jean Baudrillard

     This explosion of modernity upon us, this endless deconstruction and orgiastic dismantling of once regnant systems of order and certainty, which grounded us in "reality" and "truth" (to whatever effect) has resulted, like all explosions, in disarray. We find ourselves now not only liberated from the constrictive mechanisms of such concepts, but simultaneously faced with the task of having to act in an arbitrarily ordered world in which every action's consequence is of equal (non-) import. Such a position has inevitably led, in addition, to a condition of listlessness, of ennui: When the belief systems that once hierarchically ordered experience lay in rubble, what or who determines what's any more or less exciting or interesting than anything else? In the postmodern world, and the absence of concrete validity of such metanarratives as "identity," "truth," "reality" and the like, we are charged with picking through the debris in order to find something to believe in, and something to be excited about.
When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a plethora of myths of origin and of signs of reality -- a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity. Escalation of the true, of lived experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. Panic-stricken production of the real and of the referentialà
-- Jean Baudrillard

In the past we have always assumed that the external world around us has represented reality, however confusing or uncertain, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes, ambitions, represented the realm of fantasy and the imagination. These roles à it seems to me, have been reversed.
-- J.G. Ballard

Even the most optimistic fan of human beings will admit that our world is in a most dangerously muddled state, and Man, unaided, is unlikely to be able to do much to improve ità The temptation to turn to the computer for assistance will be overwhelming.
-- Christopher Evans