“The mass media do not transit ideologies, they are themselves an ideology. It doesn’t matter what you say when the recipient is surrounded by a series of communications. The nature of the all disparate information is of scant insignificance.”
“The world exhibitions glorify the exchange value of commodities. They create a framework in which commodities’ intrinsic value is eclipsed. The objects are not desired in themselves, every wish is gone and what remains is pure amusement and excitement. In a contemporary exposition, a country no longer says ‘Look what I produce’ but ‘Look how I am presenting what I produce’.”
Animal animatronics in Disneyland: “It is not so much difficult to have the real equivalent but public is meant to admire the perfective of the fake.”
An article summarising the Heterotopia of Walt Disney World presentation that I gave in October 2009 is now published in the February edition of the Philosophy Now magazine. The article is part of a series of papers about ‘continental tales’ and the concept of narrative in Continental philosophy.
The slides of the lecture I gave few weeks ago can now be consulted here. I used the example of Walt Disney World to illustrate the concepts of Utopia, Heterotopia, Postmodernisn and Consumerism. It would have taken me two hours to explain all the relations between them and the theme park. My presentation was limited to half of that time and only a subset of the slides were used for the Philosophy for All lecture. Don’t hesitate to leave your feedback. I hope that the slides are still understandable even without any comments.
