The cliché represents an insoluble problem for language and art in modernity. Technology, cities and forms of signification all entail a radical increase in the volume and density of discourse. This produces both a standardisation of discourse and a revulsion from this standardisation. A new type of tension develops between the standard and the rare or the original – a different tension from that between the copy and the original. The first term of the lecture course follows this tension by giving attention to the notion of the cliché, whether it be in language or in the arts, architecture and design, and its role in politics and administration. The question of the cliché even extends to people’s lives when they are considered to be living clichés, a new type of zombie. Further lectures in the series: Fridays 25 November, Emma Bovary; love as cliché; 2 December, Administration; the biopolitics of language; and 9 December, Place Settings; design and cliché Mark Cousins is director of History and Theory at the AA. He is a founder member and Senior Research Fellow at the London Consortium Graduate School. He is Guest Professor at South East University Nanjing and has been Visiting Professor at Columbia University