The Open College of the Arts – Visual Studies 1: Understanding Visual Culture - Part 2: Ways of Seeing.
“The present age... prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence... for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane... the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness”
- Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, the Essence of Christianity (1843), Preface to Second Edition.
In The Society of the Spectacle (1967), Guy Debord, leader of the Situationist International, declared that “the entire life of societies in which modern conditions of production prevail announces itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles”. The inseparability of spectacle from the state allows for the reproduction of social divisions and class formations. Both state capitalism in the former Socialist Bloc and the market capitalism of the West alienated workers through the unity of passively consumed ‘spectacle’.
Debord’s ideas about contemporary society can be seen in context of the political and cultural movements of 1968, especially in France. While Situationist International challenged the art system itself – not wanting a “critique of revolutionary art” but rather a “revolutionary critique of all art” –, The Society of Spectacle anticipates postmodernism, especially the work of Baudrillard, through the idea that everything that had once been lived had in the contemporary world transmuted into a representation. Debord shifts away from Marxist Cultural theory’s attention on political economy and into the specturalisation of everyday life.
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| Guy Debord |
This project was to read Debord’s ‘Separation Perfected’ in the Visual Culture: The Reader (ed. Hall and Evans: 1999) and make notes relating to key themes within the text.
Debord initially addresses the Spectacle as a Weltanschauung; the image has become materially translated and objectified into a world view. The concept of Weltanschauung could be seen as a comprehensive philosophy of the world as it provides frameworks that contribute to a sense of existence through generating various dimensions of human perception and experience. As a paradigm it allows for the broadening of the concept of ideology, as it explains how people order their lives in accordance to their presuppositions about the nature of things. Though this would suggest cultural relativism due to cultural differences of perspective, it does help support the idea of the Spectacle being used an over encompassing state apparatus. This is used not just by national governments but also multinational conglomerates in an increasingly globalised world. Would digitlisation and media convergence be an extension of this?
As Debord proposes that in modern society “all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation”, images become detached thus reality only partially unfolds. The Specitcalisation of images leads to a world constructed of autonomous images. Spectacle inverts life, not just because it is a collection of images but it is a form of social mediation by images. As a product of the capitalist mode of production, Spectacle doesn’t supplement reality but is central to the unrealism within it.
I believe that the passage of time, since 1967, has confirmed Debord’s view. If the ‘mass media’ is Spectacle in its most limited sense, then would its dominance in modern society show the relevance of Debord’s concepts. Digitlisation is an ideal form which allows for the Society of Spectacle to choose its own technical content; evident in the accumulation and unilateral concentration of communication by conglomerates. Media convergence allows it to invade the function of everyday society, for example the correlation between social networking and corporate interests. Public relations involvement, through censorship and self-promotion, with objective news demonstrates Spectacles’ own aim of self-movement.
By seeing “the world by means of various specialised mediations” means that we have our view of the world controlled. Propaganda is evident in the converging of news and public relations, thus we are unable to distinguish it from reality and truth. This adds to its own subversive nature. Generally we don’t question the mediated representation of reality presented when we see it in the context of news. The stasis of dominant ideology is needed because of the over encompassing nature - strengthened by globalisation - of capitalism and the reciprocal dependence of the masses as consumers. It subjugates individuals to itself in extent of the economy subjugating them thus due to the mutual nature of the base and superstructure; the economic sector shapes image-objects. It is evident in the forms of Spectacle we experience – including advertisements and direct entertainment for consumption – contain elements of propaganda: to sell us objects we don’t really need to satisfy a desire. We are interpellated as the omnipresent affirmation of choices are already made and determined.
It demands passive acceptance because it has, through the consolidation of communication, the monopoly of appearance. As a product of modern production, Spectacle is artificial though its self presentation is positive and indisputable: “That which appears is good, that which is good appears”. Its construction may invades lived reality but spectators contemplate it with positive cohesiveness. Reality seeps through the Spectacle, resulting in this illusion being considered reality. Its perpetuation allows for the satisfied mediation of the social needs of this epoch. The form and content of the Spectacle is justified by the systems goal as our leisure time is occupied by Spectacle, we are never entirely separated from modern production.
Spectacle is related to the Marxist concept of Reification; a process of viewing the abstract as real. Spectacle is an extreme reification as concrete life degraded into speculative the universe, images are detached from their original meaning and social relations. Spectacle allows for when an image is placed in another context it lacks its original connections and is seen to have attributes which it does not. Independent representation allows Spectacle to reconstitutes itself. The fetishistic and purely objective appearance of the Spectacular thus conceals real social relations.
Ideas for Further Research:
- Guy Debord and the Situationist International.
- Postmodernism, Intertextuality and the Spectacle.
- Postmodernist form to facilitating Spectacle in both film and television. For example in ‘MTV’ aesthetics and High Concept films, especially through the use of intensified continuity. Further reading about action and spectacle in the Hollywood blockbuster include:
Jose Arroyo (ed.). 2000. Action/Spectacle: A Sight and Sound Reader (BFI), Introduction pp. vii-xv;
David Bordwell. “Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film” in Film Quarterly, Vol 55, No. 3, Spring 2002, pp. 16-28;
Sheldon Hall and Steve Neale. 2010. ‘Introduction’ In Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History (Wayne State UP), pp. 1-15;
Geoff King. 2000. ‘Introduction.’ In Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster (IB Tauris), pp. 1-18;
Janet Staiger, ‘Announcing Wares, Winning Patrons, Voicing Ideals: Thinking about the History and Theory of Film Advertising’ in Cinema Journal, Vol 29, No. 3, Spring 1990, pp. 3-31.
- The cult of the personality and celebrity culture in the modern society. Could there be a correlation between glamour and the Spectacle?
- The relationship between propaganda and public relations. Separate perspectives explored through the work of Edward Bernays and extended through an investigation into the writings of Noam Chomsky.
- ‘Form and Discipline’ in V.F Perkins, 1972, Film as Film (London: Penguin), pp. 59-70.
Bibliography
D’Alleva, Anne. 2005. Methods & Theories of Art History. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Debord, Guy. 1967. ‘Separation perfected, taken from Society of Spectacle, Chapter 1’. In: Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall (eds.) London: Sage Publications. 1999, pp. 95-98.
Debord, Guy. 1992. Society of Spectacle. Rebel Press: London.
Packard, Vance. 1967. The Hidden Persuaders. London: Pelican.
Stam, Robert. 1999. Film Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell., Chapter: ‘1968 and the Leftish Turn’, pp. 130-139. ‘The Poetics and Politics of Postmodernism’, pp. 298-307.
Image Source
'Guy Debord’ [online] Available at: http://www.redemmas.org/event/1926/> [Accessed 11 December 2010]
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