Landscapes of Contradiction in Las Vegas: The Costs of Sustaining Hyperreality

Authors

  • Liette Gilbert

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/2292-4736/40423

Abstract

Las Vegas, increasingly imploded by the same imagineering principles used by the Walt Disney Company, has come to represent both the commodification of reality and the production of hyperreality. The nature of landscape has been highly commodified. The mature lush palms and specimen trees growing in the casinos’ neon lights create an instant landscape faster than the 6-hour road trip delivery from a Southern California nursery. Inside the casinos and hotels, forests of lush vegetation (made of preserved trees rebuilt of natural materials or handcrafted from silk to steel) reach a climax of artificiality. Nature on the Las Vegas Strip is a 500-year olive tree in Caesar’s Palace or a 60' tall chestnut tree on the promenade of Paris Las Vegas that is native to a naturalist-sculptor’s studio in San Diego prominently listed on the Baron’s 500 Leaders for the Next Century (Naturemaker 2003).

References

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Published

2004-01-01

How to Cite

Gilbert, L. (2004). Landscapes of Contradiction in Las Vegas: The Costs of Sustaining Hyperreality. UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies, 13, 17–19. https://doi.org/10.25071/2292-4736/40423

Issue

Vol. 13 (2004): Artifice / Artifact

Section

Academic

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors retain copyright over their work and license their work for publication in UnderCurrents under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means that the work is available for commercial and non-commercial use, reproduction, and adaptation provided that the original authors are credited and the original publication in this journal is cited, following standard academic practice.