Set the story

Aesthetics and the mounting of performative images in the celebrations of the national bicentennial

Abstract

The following article will investigate the aesthetic produced by the parade held for the official celebrations of the National Bicentennial (Buenos Aires, May 2010), and its connection with the idea of mobile, ephemeral, and performative monuments deployed by their floats. The purpose will be to ask whether in times of globalization and cultural show, perceptual coordinates attend to other modes of vision and other reading of the commemorative images, enabling other possible interactions between the participating citizens and the history told.

However, the performative event ­as a fictional assembly/recreation of our national past­ would have only remained as long as the convivial experience of its images lasted, which leads us to reflect on certain overcoming of the emblematic sculptural monument from a contemporary evolution ­driven by images generated on a screen or via influenced interpersonal communications­. Inevitably, it involves the generation of perceptual tensions, as well as other ways to appeal to a social memory of the spectacular.