Michael Oppitz, The Pinball Panel Shangri-La. Semiological Analysis of a Visual Myth. The essay deals with a material object of our daily mythological experience: with a pinball machine named Shangri-La. The panel of this pinball model represents an icon of trivial anthropology. It documents visually how exoticism is created. On the pinball table this manufacture of exoticism is executed in two ways: by blending fictitious and real data or items and by extracting elements from different cultural environments, which are then amalgamated into a syncretic single sign. The peculiar semiological contours of ethnographic facts are blurred. The panel as a mythological sign can be divided into three distinct visual units, a Tibetan left, a Chinese centre and a Japanese right, each of which units is constituted by a number of elements, which form the material base for the construction of the myth. These elements are clothes, facial expressions, musical instruments, script, architectural components, animals, plants and fragments of landscape. Although the elements and visual units of the pinball table establish a purely synthetic Asian montage, the message of the whole is Western: a eulogy on the principle of competition.
The iconographie analysis of the pinball panel is preceded by an inquiry into the transformations of the entire Shangri-La myth. Two chains of transformation emerge, a genetic one and one of the media involved. Historically, the Shangri-La myth originated in the concept of the Tibetan paradise Shambhala, on which was founded the fantastic locality ShangriLa in an English novel by J. Hilton; the novel then served as a screenplay for two feature film adaptations; film and novel helped to create the English word "Shangri-La", from which, as a dynamic verbal signifier, in turn sprang several other transformations such as the pinball machine, hotels, night clubs, holiday paradises, etc. In the course of its genetic transformations the Shangri-La myth also evolved through various media of expression: from words to images to action.
目次
Avant-propos 59 I. - L'expansion du champ sémantique: qu'est-ce que shangri-la? 59 I.1 Shangri-la est le modèle d'un panneau de marque de flipper, construit en 1967 par Williams & Company 59 I.2 Shangri-la est une expression anglaise 60 I.3 Shangri-la est le lieu principal où se déroule l'action d'un roman 61 I.4 Shangri-la est le lieu principal où se déroule l'action d'un film 63 I.5 Shangri-la est Shambhala, le millénium tibétain 64 I.5.1 Shambhala devient Shangri-la 64 I.5.2 Description de Shambhala 65 I.5.3 Conséquences politiques de l'idée de Shambhala: le messianisme tibétain 66 I.6 La chaîne de transformations d'un mythe 67 II. Iconographie du panneau de marque Shangri-la 59 II.1 Ethnographie et mythographie 69 II.I.1 La gauche tibétaine 70 II.I.2 Le centre chinois 71 II.I.3 La droite japonaise 72 II. 2 Plantes, animaux, paysages 73 II. 3 Exotisme et narcissisme 74 II. 4 L' écriture alphabétique transformée en 《chinoiserie》75 II. 5 Le décompte des points 80 II. 6 L'inscription au bas du panneau 80
