Public Sculpture Proposals

‘I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past’  - Thomas Jefferson

 

The past reveals itself to us in the present. Are we held hostage by it or can we continue to add and improve to its evolving narrative with the voice of our times in the language of our times?

 

My fascination with the world of Disney finds an apt twist with these new sculpture proposals for the medieval city of Carcassonne.

For many city dwellers, for many Americans, the primary reference to an enchanted castle is Disneyland, rather than a ‘real’ historical castle.

So, when visiting a medieval city like Carcassonne, it is in a way a copy of their original Disney castle.

 

We experience both Disney World and the medieval city through our imagination. One through a make believe fantasy world thought up by Disney story tellers, and one through the make believe fantasy of ‘history’.

Is one any more real than the other?

 

“Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the “real” country, all of “real” America that is Disneyland. Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.”
Jean Baudrillard