Counter-tourism statement here
Counter-tourism Tactics videos here and here and here and here
If you’ve ever been a tourist, then Counter-Tourism is an invitation to you to completely transform your experience of the heritage-tourism industry and its many sites. Counter-Tourism provides a set of powerful lenses, bending a whole world of conventional tourism into a spiral of new perspectives and experiences.
This idea was a bit lost in me. The creators seem to be encouraging the use of a different lens, and a different framework of thinking when being a tourist. The videos provide little snips of what I assume counter-tourism looks like. In a way this reminds me “A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey” in the sense that it is viewing the world through a different lens, but without being able to see the whole book, the videos and the statement raise more questions than answers, and those are not questions that I necessarily want to answers.
ReplyDeleteYes something that seems to tie together his actions is a desire to not passively consume as tourist information seems to often encourage. Rather to creatively engage and experience and research.
DeleteCounter tourism relates to site specificity because the author is encouraging people to reveal the hidden side of a particular site that people do not want you to know about. Often times, tourist locations are viewed and separated from their dark, historical meaning. The creators want people to transform the setting into something different and see it in a different light, such as a supermarket being an artifact.
ReplyDeleteYes the tourist site gets commodified into a new entertainment space and the significance of the place gets replaced. His intention is to produce activities that help visitors stay focused and stay active.
DeleteI sort of get what they are trying to show with seeing places you go to as a tourist in a new way, like taking photos of stains at heritage sites and not the actual place itself. I understand the seeing through fire more at the locations that had some connection with fire. We should view places in a different view and not always so straight forward. The thing I enjoyed the most was the path at the end that had nothing to do with the videos.
ReplyDeleteFlorida is a great place for understanding this kind of disconnect. Tourism, entertainment, and simulation is such a big part of our state's identity. But there is also so much biodiversity and history here that it makes it easy to see these two realities sometimes behaving in opposition to one another in how we understand their presence.
DeleteThese videos were quite intriguing yet slightly eerie. As tourists many go to sites and take in what they see as face value on usually a superficial level. These videos allow you to view tourism through a new lens and look deeper into these sites and engage more critically. I truly enjoyed the photographing of stains on the church, it forces the viewer to take in details and look at these tourist attractions through a different light. It reminded me of our monument assignment, taking in objects we see everyday through a new lens that changes the meaning we attribute to that specific item, in this case the tourist site.
ReplyDeleteActually, I watched these videos with full of curiosity. It's interesting what he is doing but honestly, I don't get it. I'm not sure but I think he wanted to show us the movement and how this typical thing could change in time. I think it's very difficult to understand what is his point.
ReplyDeleteThe Counter-tourism approach to performance is an interactive and suggestive illustration of what audience participants should do to participate in an alternative experience related to tourism. Mainly tourism to heritage and historical sites. For instance, one of the suggestions is to take photographs of all the stains on the walls of an ancient building. This type of interaction with these sites suggests the viewers can create their own meaning (and have an artist experience, a performative art experience) in addition to the general information guides usually followed in historical sites. This approach to performance is much more about instructions for the viewer versus some kind of subjective experience the Crab Man artist experiences and documents. This work is a counterpoint to all the other performance artist in that the other artists work mostly become about the artists' personal experiences themselves and the subsequent documentation of the performances that become the focal point of the artwork. In Counter-tourism the artist is trying to induce the audience to become the performance and the performative artist.
ReplyDeleteYes. I think I agree. He is encouraging an experiential and individual activity that you and fellow travelers make use of to raise your own awareness. He is not performing for you but suggesting ways to keep you actively engaged with the site.
DeleteIn counter tourism the artists perspective transforms the heritage site and allows for an actual experience or an ambiguous perspective to the places you visit. Having an actual experience with the site as a historical site as opposed to experiencing a site as a tourist area is the concept they are trying to convey. Sort of like a real and surreal approach to experience.
ReplyDeletegood.
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