Castaway Cay, Bahamas

This  private island in the Bahamas, is a Disney Cruise Line port of call. In answer to the question: "When Is The Copy Better Than The Original?" This would be it.


I am not talking about staged authenticity, like my visit to Papette Tahiti. Most designers spend their time creating shopping malls. Re-creating the island paradise, however,  is admirable.


Once  used as a stop for  drug smugglers.Think “Snow White” or “White Snow” . There is an airstrip on the island, but it is no longer in regular use nor maintained (I shot some video below) .It's unusual isolation becomes, in its own way, a paradise-somewhere in the Bahamas..


It is not Gilligan's Island but it has also been used for filming; the beach where Tom Hanks first encounters Daryl Hannah in Splash is on the island.If youw ant to read more about the islands checkered and colorful past, here is the link.



Papeete-PolYNesian Disneyland and The Audacity of hYpe

Travels In Hyper Reality-Tahitian Choreo-Musical Performances

Moorea in the distance

Outriggers-

One thing for sure, they all came by boat. So did I!

Reprint from World Cruise 2011 With less than 24 hours in port, the locals and locale  are living up to their sterotypes---the Tiki style roofs, the tropical gardens and swaying palm trees, and more than that, there is still the visual sovenier that, like the Postman, always delivers: The   beautiful  exotic Tahitian Princess with their down-to-the knees long raven hair ---hand-weaving leis  effortless, while wraping themselves  in water-colored flowered sarongs, in the post colonial suburb of Paris, known as modern day Papeete. As the  ukulele soundtrack in the background  is playing , I feel like I am on safari-- Polynesia cannot escape being a human zoo seeking to contain the lives of its star attraction--its 'first'and native  people.

It's A Small World After All

Marketing the definitive view of paradise

Playing the game of staged authenticity in the tourist themed spaces of Tahiti, while it is not the Mcdonald-ization of the South Pacific, it is playing more like a Disney animated feature film----Staged Authenticity! I feel even weird participating in the rituals of sightseeing and taking pictures--Even at the Gaugain Musuem, the pictures are fakes (They can't afford to preserve and curate the orginals). I have seen most of them around the world, mostly at the Hermitage in St Petersburg Russia of all places. But anyway the copies are better thant he orgininals!

The hyperreal world is the world of ‘the Absolute Fake’ where imitations do not only reproduce reality, but try improving it. The French artist Gauguin's  obsession with French Polynesia is still  working!!