ABSTRACT

World’s fairs are not the mundane space of lived reality, of work or rest (Benedict 1983: 6). They are places to ‘show off’ or to touch base in the free fall of rapid information overload. They have been key sites in which to both represent and shape global imaginations of the future. Robert Rydell’s work has focused on American Depression-era fairs, which, he has argued, ‘became cultural icons for the nation’s hopes and future’ (1993:1). Early fairs made the future present, through world-first presentations of such things as the telephone, photography, typewriters, electric lighting and ice machines – as well as being the site for the first public radio broadcast. Numerous studies have recounted how such displays evoked a technological utopianism (for example, Silverman 1977). The first fairs may have tutored audiences in the consumption of rare objects and exotica (such as the Koh-i-Noor Diamond) and in the scientific might of the empires, but this expo – designed for overstimulated, easily distracted hyper-media consumers – seemed to have little interest in such considered contemplation. Relentless global media cycles and the Internet have made their impact on world’s fairs: no longer are they the prime venue for unveiling the latest innovations and technologies (Benedict 1983: 59). Rydell et al. have traced how fairs in the atomic, post-World War II age have been shaped by ‘deepening doubts about the future’ (2000: 13).