World’s Fairs are Machines
The World’s Fairs — ephemeral events in which “the World of Tomorrow” unfolds and is memorialized by millions. Beneath the heaps of memories churned out by its huge gears, powered by corporate greed and the public’s lust for an overabundance of the miscellaneous, lie the forgotten ruins and waste. World’s Fairs are machines. A machine that boldly pronounces “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe” through technological invention and mass production. With a growing consciousness around consumption, the model of the fair must adapt, uprooting its industrial origins and creating a new form for memory and culture to proliferate.
From their beginnings in 1851 at the Crystal Palace, World’s Fairs have been shaped by its roots in an industrial culture. These events, which roam from country to country every few years, are places where nationalism, corporatism, and consumerism unfold. Celebrated within corporate sponsored pavilions, life altering technological advancements like electric lighting, the dishwasher, and the superhighway were only a few of the realized imaginations that have now become embedded in daily life across the world. World’s Fairs are events that reflect a history that moves from industrialization, suburbanization, and to today’s climate crisis. World’s Fairs are consumable for a range of ages — from those who have visited past fairs to a younger generation that might not know much about their history and impact on today’s culture. Through using World’s Fairs in the form of public memory, this video views World’s Fairs through a cultural lens that is typically overshadowed by nostalgia.
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