From the formalism and functionalism of modernism to the semiotics and simulations of post-modernism, the question of meaning has been suspended, bracketed or repressed. With the spread of mechanical, digital, electronic and telematic means of production and reproduction, meaning, like truth, certainty and security, seemed to have become a thing of the past. More precisely, meaning appeared to be inseparable from humanism and rationalism, which are historically specific rather than universal conditions of human being. The correlative of the eclipse of meaning was what influential critics described as "the disappearance of the real." While Hegel had argued that "the real is the rational," by the end of the 20th century, leading philosophers were not only insisting that the real is not rational but also were arguing that it is actually unrepresentable. From this perspective, the elusive real does not provide a secure ground for meaning but disrupts and dislocates every system and structure designed to represent it.