The Micro-history of a world event: intention, perception and imagination at the Exposition universelle de 1867

摘要

Universal exhibitions are almost exclusively described as representations of anoutside reality. The authenticity of the exhibits and the relation between thedisplay and the real thing are put into consideration to investigate the politicalaims and ambitions of the organizers. However, the records of the spectatorsshow that these were more likely to evaluate the objects according to othercriteria. Here exhibitions reveal themselves as events that were not judged in thefirst place for their capacity to represent but for their ability to create. Visitors usedthem to develop pleasing mental images according to their individual andhedonistic motivations. In this sense, the exhibitions did not so much hint backto the outside than rather hint forward to an evolving imaginary inside the viewer.Thus, the paper focuses on the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867 to explore howand to what purpose the spectators dealt with what they saw. My aim is to analyzeexhibitions as independent imaginary worlds, which serve as starting points forcreative cultural actions that are very little concerned with the realness of thedisplay