Performing Consumers: Global Capital and its Theatrical Seductions

Performing Consumers is an exploration of the way in which brands insinuate themselves into the lives of ordinary people who encounter them at branded superstores.

Looking at our performative desire to ‘try on’ otherness, Maurya Wickstrom employs five American brandscapes to serve as case studies: Ralph Lauren; Niketown; American Girl Place; Disney store and The Lion King; and The Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. In this post-product era, each builds for the performer/consumer a...