The spectacle is society’s
fascination with images through a social perspective. The spectacle takes people away from the
reality of life and into the world of images. People believe in the world of
images and often times live through the images/ They want to become what they
see, and then believe what they see is what they need. “The spectacle is not a
collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by
images.” (Society of the Spectacle, 4) Debourd
explains that we think that the spectacle is a collection of images but it is
more than that, it is society’s obsession with images. “All that once lived has
become a mere representation” Society is consumed by images. With society’s
obsessions with images they lose the real life connection to the real world
Debord describes the spectacle as
images that society vicariously lives through. The relationship between society
and images is that they use images, as a way to escape and those producing the
images are the ones controlling society’s need and wants. They produce the
images with the intent for consumers to buy what they don’t need. “The
alienation of the spectator to the profit of the contemplated object (which is
the result of his own unconscious activity) is expressed in the following way:
the more he contemplates the less he lives; the more he accepts recognizing
himself in the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own
existence and his own desires. The externality of the spectacle in relation to
the active man appears in the fact that his own gestures are no longer his but
those of another who represents them to him. This is why the spectator feels at
home nowhere, because the spectacle is everywhere.” (Society of the Spectacle,
30) Here we understand the idea of supply and demand. Society falls under this
pressure to conform to the production of images. The more society lives through
these images the less they become involved in the real world. Individuals are
so captured by images that they become less of themselves and eventually lose
who they are. Which relates back to the specific line “This is why the spectator feels at home
nowhere, because the spectacle is everywhere” Images are everywhere and it’s
hard for one to feel like they belong when they will relate to anything; that
is everywhere.
The impact images have on society
has the same affect for years but it appears as time progresses the amount of
people it impacts and how they choose to get the images to impact consumers
changes drastically. Images now are produced to target a certain person, and
often times the images give the consumers a false illusion. The illusion that
they can become that image, however the image is impossible to become. The
illusion also fails to represent everything and everyone. It is hardly
realistic, and that is why Deburd argues that society lives in a dream.
The spectacle as a commodity
represents the spectacle putting value on things. The spectator is a reflection
of images. The spectacle has the power to make the spectator believe that they
can be the spectacle. In media now, we deal with convergence. Convergence is
transforming media into different forms of relaying information to the public.
This makes it that much easier for the spectator to quickly try to become the
spectacle. With convergence we are getting more images out to the public. With
the Internet, instagram, twitter, and other various forms of social media, we
can create thousands of images a day. The problem with that is that now people
have so much more images to lose themselves in. Along with the progress of
convergence, researchers and advertisers have found ways to study how the
spectator takes in information and images. With the progress of the research of
the psychological impact images have an individual. Images are now created with
the intent to specifically target a specific audience, and they know various
tactics on how to lure in the spectator.
The commodity is the general
expression the reality vs. image. Its relation to the spectacle it stresses the
wants and needs of the spectator. Commodity puts value on the spectacle, making
it appear that much more important. “The spectacle is the other side of money:
it is the general abstract equivalent of all commodities. Money dominated
society as the representation of general equivalence, namely, of the
exchangeability of different goods whose uses could not be compared. The
spectacle is the developed modern complement of money where the totality of the
commodity world appears as a whole, as a general equivalence for what the
entire society can be and can do. The spectacle is the money, which one only
looks at, because in the spectacle the totality of use is already exchanged for
the totality of abstract representation. The spectacle is not only the servant
of pseudo-use, it is already in itself the pseudo-use of life.” (Society of the
Spectacle, 49) This quote does an excellent job in explaining how commodity
relates to the spectacle. As money dominates society, the spectacle dominates
society in the same sense that it gets the attention of so many people. It has
become the necessity in everyone lives. It has become impossible for society to
live without the spectacle. They depend on the spectacle to fulfill their
desires and needs.
Link
No comments:
Post a Comment