Section 1 - Chapter I pages 1-30 Summary and Analysis

Chapter one begins with a description of an art display. Two girls are in a crouched position facing each other and touch each other in a sensual manner. They are enclosed in a kind of plastic cylinder. However, it turns out the the girls are merely a hologram presented at an exhibit in New York. Eco suggests that holography is the natural and final extension of photorealism. He continues that America is a country that is fixated on realism, even to the point of obtaining "real" copies.

Eco uses the story of Superman as an allegory of America and suggests that he has need of returning to his "Fortresses of Solitude" from time to time. Superman has several robots that are such good copies of human beings that they don't appear...