A picture that is, to use a term very much appreciated
by documentary photographers: a strictly "straight image." However this
photograph is a deception in that it appears to be like a composite of
several ones. Essentially it looks "fake." However, what do you call an
image in which the subject matter to begin with is what is fake? So we
go back to those basic dilemmas about photography, wherein does the deception
lie? In the original or the reproduction? Or is it maybe our interpretation
of it all?
It was 25 years ago
that a little known professor, Robert Venturi, dared in to Las Vegas with
two dozen of his students from Yale, and stayed at the Stardust. The result
of that trip would become his influential 1972 book, Learning from Las
Vegas, which would introduce the world of high culture to the notion of
what in time, became known as Post-Modernist architecture.
Today every big-city
downtown has new skyscrapers that attempt to look like old skyscrapers.
Almost every suburb has a shopping center decorated with phony arches,
fake pediments, and imitation columns. Venturis' manifesto stating that
Las Vegas could become a beacon for the architecture of the future, in
particular in the United States, transformed such esthetic thinking through
out the world. Today we can see such buildings from Mexico City to London
aside from major metropolitan cities all over the US landscape.
Being
built now In Las Vegas, is a reproduction (scale 1:1) of the Piazza di
San Marco in Venice, 
with all the surrounding world famous architectural
landmarks. Consider the famous Campanile tower: While it's a handsome
construction, and the subject of high praise by many critics, including
John Ruskin in his exalted book The Stones of Venice, the one now standing
in Venice isn't even the real tower. The original one collapsed in 1902,
and a new tower was built in 1912. A reproduction. Not the authentic article.
You get the picture?
As we enter the digital age,
Las Vegas will not only extend it's influence the way it did for architecture;
our notions of what passes as "reality" itself will also increasingly
become the subject of many agonizing thoughts.
Bugs Bunny presides from a Roman
chariot over a collective of cartoon characters dressed themselves as
Romans at the entrance to the Warner Bros. studio store. One is able to
observe as the famous bunny stands there, off to the left on a niche,
dressed like any Roman of substance, is the Road Runner character all
geared up and presenting us with his shield as any good soldier standing
in such a niche would do. Such stores are for children (I would assume)
yet they are located amidst hundreds of slot machines leading towards
their very entrance.
At
the opposite end of the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, a sort of baroque
moon colony completely sealed off from the outside world, with computer-controlled
sky effects that cycle from rosy-fingered dawn to purple dusk on the roof
vaults above, and pastiche Roman statuary, you will find Mickey Mouse
and Donald Duck looking their best in their Roman attire. They are feasting
under an inscription that reads The Ides of March. The feast is reminiscent
of a Last Supper. Now why would Mickey and Donald celebrate with such
relish just when Julius Caesar was about to be murdered, as the painting
suggests? Can this be the decoration for a children's store?
Is Las Vegas for children? Yes
and maybe. In spite of the numerous families that arrive with their kids,
I would hardly consider Las Vegas child oriented. At the very most it
is tolerant of children, but only to a degree. Consider the sign at the
entrance to the Treasure Island Casino or the Mirage Casinos, "only guests
of the hotel can bring in their children sitting in strollers". Yet the
Treasure Island has a free show every two hours which attracts thousands
of families with children and the Mirage spent millions and millions of
dollars to house a family of dolphins as well as creating a little zoo,
allegedly for the entertainment and "education" of the younger ones.
Disney World is about tightly
scripted fun for the kids; however Las Vegas as Kurt Andersen of Time
magazine wrote, is something different: "Las Vegas in spite of all the
theme-park entertainment, remains the epicenter of the American id, focused
on the darker stirrings of chance, liquor and sex. If it is now acceptable
for the whole family to come along to Las Vegas, that's because the values
of America have changed, not those of Las Vegas."
The Mirage casino offers us
a glimpse of the ever increasing ersatz realities that in time might become
the "real" things. 
The lobby of the Mirage is offered to us as a tropical
rain forest, never mind that this is the desert, or better said, it is
there because this is the desert. From such a "rain forest" we should
learn the importance that a rain forest holds for human life, at least
that is what we are told by the promotional videos on the tram leading
towards the casino. Who would want to loose those exquisite palm trees
(made out of plastic) that turn into a promenade for all the guests of
the Casino? The fact that these palm trees are all identically bent out
of shape does not seem to be of any major concern to anyone. The precious
bouganvilas are also fake, like the huge stones from which tons of water
cascade into a river. Even the butterflies are mechanical or electronic
reproductions set to flap their colorful wings with out interruption,
day in and day out. Obviously not all there is artificial, it's a careful
blend of the real with the unreal, real water with plastic stones, real
plants with fake butterflies, real tourists with surrogate ones (these
latter ones being security people).
Just as Las Vegas has been a
forerunner for post-modernist architecture, I believe that this incredible
city, which operates at full steam 24 hours a day, can in time become
the cultural capital of the world. We already have Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne
and Picasso making their first appearances there, and cities like Paris,
Venice, New York, Cairo and Rome, are well on their way to being re created,
and the list surely to grow.
I cannot wait for someone in
the 21st century to make a city attempting to imitate Las Vegas, in Japan
for instance. Just imagine they would now have to reproduce a large chunk
of the world already reproduced in Las Vegas. A copy of the copy, now
that is an idea. While all of this happens Las Vegas will remain a photographers
paradise as well as a cultural frontier to explore the intellectual intricacies
of where reality resides. Jorge Luis Borges had it right in his Aleph
when he described the magical point where all places are seen from every
angle.
Pedro Meyer's photographs are found in the collections of more than 40 major museums throughout the world. He's also authored several books, including Los Cohetes Duraron Todo el Dia; Tempii di America; and Espejo de Espinas. His column appears each month in Camera Works.
