itourist?

’...it is not Auschwitz that necessarily makes the impact of the (holocaust) ‘sublime’ meaningful, but the reciprocal relation that exists between Auschwitz the site, those stories about Auschwitz that are disseminated at Auschwitz, and that body of discourse within which the pilgrim is already enmeshed prior to his or her actual visit, Together, the site, those stories and that discourse render the sublime intelligible, which is to say, they lend it some measure of cultural value.’ me, ‘auschwitz: who goes there?’

thinking about what kinds of writings to include in possible itourist? publication. i’ve published extracts from an essay that’s due to appear in anthony kiendl’s ‘informal architectures’ on this site (go to text, it’s not all there just some bits n’ pieces). the above comment is taken from that. i think i should think more about what kinds of mass media holocaust related imagery our notional ‘pilgrim’ has been immersed in, as well as art work that critically deals with this – i’m thinking of the death camp lego, can’t remember who did it but it is a particualr favourite of mine. also like to think about some of the things lennon and fowley talk about in ‘dark tourism’ (see blog 9) particularly re: the material validation of knowledge acquired through the mass media. am also thinking of going back to auschwitz – perhaps as part of the kind of trip griselda pollock mentions at the start of her essay – and writing it up as an extended blog entry.