Umberto Eco "Travels in Hyperreality"

Eco approaches the concept of hyper reality within the context of replication and recreation. He focuses his writings on the American Culture and out insatiable desire to "have more". The most intriguing of his conceptual agenda is the concept of blurring reproduction and "the real" to the point of indistinguishable cohabitation.

He talks about the concept of the diorama and its aim to “establish itself as a substitute for reality, as something even more real”. The concept of recreation to re present an established object ties into our current project in that we are also attempting to re present the intent of the producer, although our “diorama” is one that will take roots in its precedent but extrapolate upon previous production intentions develop into its own form.

One other concept from this reading that really ties into our projects of this term is the idea of recreating two-dimensional form with three-dimensional representation. Eco references the 20th century portrait of Peter Stuyvesant that the New York museum recreates in three-dimensional sculpture. Between, reconstructed colonial towns, wax museums, historical dioramas, and scientific advances such as the hologram and virtual reality, there is a growing fascination of the representation of time and space. This concept of hyper reality is one that will continue to grow and advance until the concept of time and space are indistinguishable.