The Carousel. Storia della rappresentazioni e delle esposizioni di sé tra Ottocento e Novecento

Abstract

In a dense plot of images extended from the 19th to the 20th century, this paper aims to reconstruct the problematic relationships between the metropolis and identity, focusing on the genesis, transformations and experiments carried out by advertising. Advertising, an expanding and highly codified narrative system (shock, indirect communication, senses and states of consciousness, immersion, narcosis, simulations), is understood as the best formal response to the changing sensory and moral conditions of the metropolis. This language is at the same time a sphere of multiplication of fashions and economic processes, and a means of survival in relation to the chaos and dispersion of phenomena. From the preliminary aesthetic experiences of the early 20th century (windows, posters, paintings) to the most recent media platforms (virtual reality, television series), in the history proposed here, we witness a progressive convergence between advertising and identity, representation and everyday life. A convergence that can be understood, beyond mere self-exhibition or vulgar narcissism, as the appropriation of the modes and tools necessary for the conquest of meaning.