Date: Sat, 6 May 95 09:08:31 EDT
From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas)
Subject: Re: Explaining fireworks


Erik wrote:

> Remember the footage of the bombing of Iraq?  As I remember it, that was 
> packaged almost as a similacrum of fireworks (anything to add J. C.?).  
> But I don't think that this was done because fireworks represented 
> the pure beauty, but because fireworks are a derealized representation 
> of that sort of bombing.  

It depends what you mean by "representation".  The beauty of fireworks
undoubtedly has to do with their explosive qualities: the shooting up,
the sudden bursting into flame, the self-destruction, etc.  So 
to reduce a bombing to just those qualities is a perfect derealizing
move.  But I would disagree that fireworks _represent_ bombing in 
the sense that their aesthetic appeal rests in their similarity with bombing.
To the contrary, one could say that the CNN posits bombing as a sort
of representation of fireworks.  


- malgosia 

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