The Ornament of Destination

The Postcard as a Tourist Oxímoron

Abstract

Postcards help us understand the structural and conceptual dimensions of the contemporary tourism phenomenon. Beyond their dual function as a greeting (from the tourist to the recipient) and as a souvenir of the trip (the graphic memory of lived experiences), postcards are constructions conceived and designed to explore and strengthen the tourist gaze. In this article, we propose a critical reading of the mechanisms by which these images are formally and aesthetically shaped, taking as a reference certain photographic approaches to representing the world and reality. We are particularly interested in exploring the processes of translation, transformation, and editing of photography in the postcard format, also reviewing some theoretical concepts —place, territory, center, periphery, and drift— linked to the consumption dynamics of tourism and certain alternative artistic practices. Despite their common formulas and archetypes, repeated over time and in different national contexts to create a recognizable global tourist iconography, postcards articulate a radical and distinctive visual language that makes them not just banal images of contemporary leisure but authentic and prophetic metaphors for the dystopias and tensions of tourism.