Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Holographic America

I found a useful parallel to omnitopia in Jean Baudrillard's notion of America-as-Hologram:
America is a giant hologram, in the sense that information concerning the whole is contained in each of its elements. Take the tiniest little place in the desert, any old street in a Mid-West town, a parking lot, a Californian house, a BurgerKing [sic] or a Studebaker, and you have the whole of the US -- South, North, East, or West . . . The hologram is akin to the world of phantasy [sic]. It is a three-dimensional dream and you can enter it as you would a dream. Everything depends on the existence of the ray of light bearing the objects. If it is interrupted, all the effects are dispersed, and reality along with it. (pp. 29-30)
Baudrillard, J. (1989). America (C. Turner, Trans.). New York: Verso.

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