The world exhibition’s logic colonized reality itself, collapsing the boundary between representation and world

Evidence

Despite these methods of creating the determined distinction between representation and reality, however, it was not always easy in Paris to tell where the exhibition ended and the world itself began. It is true that the boundaries of the exhibition were clearly marked, with high perimeter walls and monumental gates. But, as the Egyptian delegation had begun to discover, there was much about the real world outside, in the streets of Paris and beyond, that resembled the world exhibition; just as there was more about the exhibition that resembled the world outside. It was as though, as we will see, despite the determined efforts within the exhibition to construct perfect representations of the real world outside, the real world beyond the gates turned out to be rather like an extension of the exhibition. This extended exhibition would continue to present itself as a series of mere representations, representing a reality outside. Thus we should think of it as not so much an exhibition as a kind of labyrinth, the labyrinth which includes in itself its own exits. But then, perhaps the sequence of exhibitions became so accurate and so extensive, no one ever realised that the ‘real world’ they promised was not there. Except perhaps the Egyptians. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 73

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s reading notes on representation/reality — mirrors Baudrillard’s simulacra and the earlier One Square Inch material on how human constructions reconfigure perception of what is ‘real’.
• DEEPTHINKING: Resists one-sentence summary: the exhibition-as-labyrinth that includes its own exits is a paradigm-shifting image dissolving the distinction between representation and the world, and the qualifier about the Egyptians being the only ones to notice is dense and unexpected.