ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 uses I Ching theosophy as a technology of interpretation of material and emotional movement to analyse the design of particular atmospheres in particular cinematic tourist contexts. It sets aside classifications of film-induced or cinematic tourism in terms of consumption behaviours and, adopts the notion of religious and non-religious (popular cultural or ‘popcultural’) pilgrimage as a supra-category of technological mobility enclosing different motivations, affects and practices. It is noted that, in addition to any individual motivations, cinematic pilgrims share an objective and purpose: not visitations to filmed sites as purposeless consumption, but the spatialisation of moods we associate with healing. More specifically, generic notions of consumer disorientation, which may guide influential theses are modified by theory and example.
Different occasions of cinematic tourism development, often intertwined with heritage visitation, are attuned with I Ching’s ancient technical teaching about ways of being in the world with others, which promote a holistic improvement of the human soul, mind and body, in harmony with the animate and inanimate environment. This ‘ecoaesthetics’ inspires a series of interpretative ‘signs’ (‘hexagrams’ and ‘trigrams’), which allow researchers to present different pilgrimages into local and cinematic atmospheres. Various combinations between these social-scientific signs construct a theoretical basis for tourism mobility that does not obey to business classifications of movement, but uses their design in its organisation.
