The “wonderful” walled spectacle

The city of Rio de Janeiro is known for its landscapes and special scenic beauty as it is also known for its many contrasts. In the beginning of XX century it won larges avenues and monumental European styled buildings which became part of its icons and formed a picturesque image of Rio as “The wonderful city”. However, these urban reforms also forced a relocation of needy families from the historical center to urban voids in the hills; supporting a process of estrangement and alienation. Historically, this process was endured by an overexposure of built images, leading away forms before known as real. Through the use of new illusions, the dweller can only see the world from the consumption/production mode, which only shows the socially dominant model of life. Naturally, the spectacle is the expression of this reality (unreality), transfigured by others eyes. There is no opinion or inquiry, only contemplation and recognition. This keeps the spectators together in a process of disgust: they increasingly less value their own life, as they recognize themselves in these dominants images. The local memory is replaced by a designed memory. Who doesn’t fit in it is excluded for not to lose the illusion. So, the spectacle controls and rebuilds the urban space along the axis of bordering and surveillance. It unifies and divides the city at the same time. It’s the invisible walls, where a new city branding is created: an urban marketing based on the spectacle. In Rio, there are three powerful invisibles walls/images growing in it: One, created for an inside people to organize them with an estrangement of consumption. Indifference and anonymity are inbuilt in the insider. This results in an uncanny feeling as the rediscovery of something familiar that was previously lost. Other, created for an outside people to control them by a sense of inclusion. This image hides the weakness of governance and sells the idea of equality between inside and outside. However, here, there are infiltrated fragments of the inside image. Through the gaps in the speech, outsiders realize that the ambiguity of the outside image brings an inability to recognize his reality. Finally, an “externalside” image is created to produce an allegorical mark to be internationally sold. This means a commercialization of the material and immaterial heritage of the city. Where, outsider and insider are part of the showcase spectacle made for the visitor: the first, unable to react for not understanding the dubiously message sent and the second, unconscious of his condition for only being a spectator. Both are exploited as attraction in a new social view within the “spectacularization” of poverty. The consumption spectacle is in the essence of intolerance towards the other and its walls made it possible. The reality is hidden in a lake of distraction and irrelevance. Pleasure and fun, love and money: these are the elements that distorted the city of Rio to a walled spectacle-city.