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THE LOGIC OF SPECTACLE c. 1970
Author(s) -
LOCKYER ANGUS
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00564.x
Subject(s) - spectacle , exposition (narrative) , context (archaeology) , contingency , aesthetics , representation (politics) , visual arts , event (particle physics) , art , art history , sociology , history , political science , law , epistemology , literature , politics , philosophy , archaeology , physics , quantum mechanics
This essay uses the Japan World Exposition of 1970 (Expo '70) to explore the logic of spectacle. It focuses on three discrete aspects of the event: a week‐long hunger strike and protest, staged in the Tower of the Sun, the architectural icon of the Expo; the exhibit within the Tower, created by a leading artist to shake his audience out of their contemporary anomie; and the design of the Expo site as a whole, intended by leading architects as a model for cities of the future. The essay argues that the significance of spectacle as communication, as proposed by protestor and artist, can only be understood in the context of spectacle as system, visible in the work of the architects. The success of the latter, moreover, was not premised on the logic of representation, providing a particular account of the world, but on a logic of accommodation, ensuring that the Expo could account for contingency. In Osaka at least, the spectacle worked well inasmuch as it could afford to be somewhat indifferent to what was put on display.