Concept of the Spectacle in Contemporary Art - Report Example

Concept of the Spectacle in Contemporary Art French theorist Guy Debord was the first to assign the word spectacle a technical meaning in his ‘Society of the spectacle’. His Situationist International has a substantial impact on the contemporary approach of culture and society. Debord viewed spectacle as a merger of apparently paradoxical phenomenon and also an elaboration of this diverse phenomenon1. His concept of spectacle is spreading through modern means of mass communication, academic and cultural endeavours. It posits that the images are produced and consumed in a society in an organized way based on consumer society. Spectacle indicates the displays the images of cruelty and violence. It is an exhibition of curiosity or contempt and marvel or admiration. Spectacle should can attract people’s gaze and induce sentiments of disgust and abhorrence in them. Spectators are a mean of mediation between the sensitized object and the onlooker. The concept of the modern spectacle arouses with emerging consumer-oriented society and tackles more perplex issues of social genre like mass consumerism. Guy Debord in 1967 promoted that the mass consumerism has culminated into a singular market consciousness, which he termed ‘the society of the spectacle’. The pre-modern history involves spectacle of rise and fall in grandeur of empires. In classical Greek society, the spectacle of public rhetorical battles and wars involving valour and brutality, its Olympics, theological and poetry festivals were prevalent. During Greek age, such spectacle was tied to the emotions and visual acts of Greek tragedy. In Aristotle’s time, the spectacle was used to sensitize the audiences. Greek tragedies were considered most acceptable when filled with spectacle arousing fear and pity among the audience. Tough at that time spectacle was restricted to theatre and theatrical performance to imply the emotional responses of the audiences, however, in out times, the spectacle has broaden its context and medium of propagation2. The Romans were too overwhelmed by the spectacle of Roman Empire, building everywhere monuments and conducting parades, public display of circuses, orgies. Similarly, in the east the great warrior Genghis Khan used his military spectacles to boost its powers and authority over a large geographic region. In similar fashion, the rise of spectacle of the victory of religions, especially of those of Christians and Muslims is made popular. After that, the tale of the modern nation states through the popular spectacle of self-determination. In the meantime, Machiavelli completed the Prince that the spectacle of effective social control. If look back, one can see in the context of globalization there is a mammoth increase in the spectacle of military and Empire3. Today, the spectatorship in art is not an art unopposed, i.e., it is stridently opposed by the participatory approach of art manifestation. It is the actual difference between equality and quality and the depiction of art versus real life (Beudert). The difference in the approach of these two is evident everywhere showing that the social and artistic judgments do not work in harmony. Spectator art in this modern era emphasis on amelioration of the condition of society through humanistic ethics aided by religion. However, on the other hand, artistic creation augments the creativity4. Debord also considers the sense of sight as the ‘most abstract and mystified sense’ and blame it for all the distraction in the consumer society. Debord further says that the spectacle is a useful tool to keep the people unaware of the harsh realities of life by diverting the attention of the spectators from confrontations and ultimately from class-consciousness. He propagates the view that capitalist society alienates the labourers from their labour, art from realistic life, and human consumption from the needs. His situationist movement was a reply to such notions of the capitalist society, which propagated for the self-production through collective actions and practices5. Jean Baudrillard expands the concept of spectacle to a new form of consumer-based society, which is characterized, with non-materialism of images and signs. He proposes the idea of anaesthetic society of simulacrum; that he explains that it is a type of a non-materialistic society where every individual is anesthetized or sedated. In his concept, in such a society everything will be sedated; politics into the political spectacle, sex into pornography, and culture alienated from art, and much intruded with overwhelmingly effective media6. Like Debord, Baudrillard describes that the images and the reality are not related in the way which we think, but he elaborate the relation with much emphasis on the inter-mingling nature of the image and reality; and this due to increasing significance and manifestations of image. Thus in post-modern era the separation of images and reality is replaced by simulation; a phenomenon which reveals that as consumer society, people is not only consuming representation, but also the medium through which representation reaches to them, thus making the distinction of images and reality vague and dubious7. The current scenario of the capitalist system suggests the omnipresence of spectacle in every sphere of both social and individual life. The incrementing trends of investment in advertisement and spectacular shopping malls, high-tech entertainment, post-modern architecture and imitation of famous sites are considerable depictions of spectacles that may be related to past or presence. The whole ambience of social life is preoccupied with the spectre of advertisement and spectacle. Massive bill boards on highways, vehicles on the road covered with glossing graphics, huge skyscrapers and tall buildings bearing advertisements shows the level at which the spectacle of consumer society has overwhelm the social life8. Even sports is also dogged in the paradigm of spectacle, where there is a constant need of advertisement containing seductive women, lot of sponsors, promotions, even cheerleaders and mascots creating a much hyped environment of spectacles. Games are shown on a high-tech huge screen with intermittent replays and advertisement of commodities as well. Such events and even the grounds and complexes are named after private corporations with malls; restaurants are depictive of consumer-oriented society which at every step offers commodities and services but for very hefty price. This is not the end, even the uniforms the sports’ equipment and body parts; everything is highly invested and is used to sell to the corporate giants to run after the unlimited desires and dreams9. The realm of fashion is too filled with the zealous desire of dreams that have broken up with the reality. The fashion in clothing has too imbibed with style for construction of a fascinating image. Hence, it is undeniable fact that in a society that is spectacle, every member of it becomes spectacle and fashion in such a society, tends to work to create an iconic image of an individual and to give himself a recognition with respect to his spectacle10. The concept of spectacle forwarded by Debord posits that in a consumer society, the demand for the commodity is unrealistic and artificial, and it is due to the endless production of gadgets with advancement in technology. Every day, new product gives the consumers an illusion of false fantasy of happiness and joy. So, in the real world with real beings, the spectacle is intermingled with the fool’s paradise of happiness of abstract images with unending production from capitalism. The zenith of abstraction reaches such height where everyone lives in a world of fantasy. In today’s society of consumerism, everyone visualizes oneself in terms of a particular fashion, style or public personality. Particularly, media personalities are considered as icons and ideals. Thus, the members of such society start to see themselves in the image of their needs, and thus, the link of image and the existence in the reality more and more weakens11. The 21st century emerged as an age of science and technology where media has an important role to play. Not only the role assigned to media is just information dissemination but it also have broad and intense influence on the economy, polity, society, and other everyday activities of human life. With the advancing technology, the spectacles that it is creating have now become more advanced, and technology oriented. Through entertainment, news and tabloid infotainment the advance technological spectacle has seized audiences and grew in its vigour and intensity. Today, political and social life is more and more influenced and hence, shaped by media spectacle12. For Debord, the term spectacle was constituted to explain the behaviour of consumer society with modern means of communication i.e., fast and responsive media that is being used to exhibition and for advertising of products. These acts further strengthen the grip of capitalism on the society rendering it more consumers oriented. Many forms of modern media like radio, television, Internet, and the latest phenomenon of wireless gadgets are used to serve this purpose. Sometimes the term ‘media spectacle’ is used to indicate their immense effect on the consumer society which they render in holistically. However, it should be noted that media spectacle is not restricted to commodity spectacles, e.g., Nike or KFC spectacle, now there is mega-spectacle of the political genre that defines particular periods. The spectacle of Soviet-American rivalry, the spectacle of ‘New world order’, and now the ‘War on Terror’ are typical mega-spectacles that defined the era of its occurrence. The mega-spectacles of this typical era also includes various ceremonies of death and funeral (Nelson Mandela), the game-changer terror attack of September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq saga, spectacle of Libya and Syria, elections for white house, the extravaganza of soccer world cup, right now, the emerging phenomenon of IS and violence in Eastern Europe and South Asia. All these are manifestations of media culture that sometimes magnifies and manipulates the endeavours of resolution of controversies, while other time it distorts the facts creating disagreements and frictions. In the meanwhile, further augmenting consumerism and capitalism by engaging denizens of media through image culture, attractive and fascinating spectacles. Debord elaborates this fact arguing that in this consumer-frenzy world the differentiation of the real world and images have become more obscure and less differentiable just as one feels in hypnosis. Therefore, simple images look like real beings and the ability of the consumers to differentiate between reality and myth is lost13. The sex depiction, violence on media and social and / or political development in one country is widely disseminated through media creating spectacles, which overlap the whole globe. Newspapers, cable TV, websites and modern technology have opened unlimited doors to drag individuals into a virtual world where they are lost in the mist of spectre of happiness and liveliness14. The marriage of convenience between business and advertising takes place for promoting commodities at global marketplace as media spectacles. In order to maintain its image and spectacle in a fierce competitive marketplace dominated by gigantic private corporations, companies are obliged to define a logo and brand images in everything they produce, from commodity to packaging, and in advertisements, and on everything and everywhere, where the company surmises to enamoured the eyesight of the customers. The celebrities too are created and maintained in the realm of media spectacle. They are considered idols, more appropriately, the goddess and god of the human spectacle. In order to become a celebrity it requires dominate on the media spectacle, which is to be perceived positively in the greater public. However, there are always scandals, which carefully planned by their image handlers to further promote the spectacle of a celebrity15 (Kellner). Mergers enhance the ability of the media to create a spectacle and converge audience to two corporations into a single chain making it more effective and popular media out. Such amalgamations always benefit both the company. Mark C. Miller describes that by 2002, the whole media around the world was controlled by a mere ten mammoth corporations16. Today, the infotainment is the prime sector of the spectacle. It is because the infotainment sector is deeply involved in economy, polity and socio-cultural aspects. Corporations are merging spectacle of their economic interest in the current infotainment channels from TV to stage and altering all the existing domains of culture like movie, music, and also emerging sectors latest wireless technology gadgets17. In such a world, where the concept of reality is non-existent under the schema of image and spectacle, life cannot assert itself directly and lively. The spectacle forms particular social relations where individuals indirectly consume the commodity and services without any active involvement18. Thus, the above discussion makes us believe that the art in the contemporary world is heavily and deeply intermingled with spectacle that Debord elaborates in detail. From fashion to media, sports to politics, every realm of human society has developed a spectacle, which has somehow, connections with underlying economic interests of giant corporations. Capitalism, with its full and intense assertion, has turned the simple society into a consumer society, where every individual develops an unrealistic and unachievable image very far from reality. In contrast to fulfil his need, individual starts to pursue this image that turns into never ending chase of a myth. In the process, individuals become detracted from the reality and finds false fantasies to satisfy him. Consumerism has further augmented the unending demand of more advanced and better to such an extent that where consumers never satisfy with his commodity. In the whole process, media have played an important role in propagating the interests of the corporation and in constructing the spectacle needed to compete in the global marketplace. Works Cited Baudrillard, J. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Print. Best, S. and D. Kellner. Post Modern Turn: New Stages of the Spectacle. New York, USA: The Guilford Press, 1997. Print. Beudert, L. "Spectacle Pedagogy: Art, Politics, and Visual Culture." International Journal of Education & the Arts IX. Review 2 (2008): 1-11. Print. Bishop, C. "Participation and Spectacle: Where are We Now?" 2011. dieklaumichshow.org. Web. 30 12 2014 . Capezio, O. "Hyperreality In The Post-Modern Age." 2012. Academia.edu. Web. 30 12 2014 . Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Detroit, Michigan: Black and Red, 1967. Kan, L. "Spectacle." 2004. University of Chicago. Web. 30 12 2014 . Kellner, D. "Media Culture and the Trimph of Spectacle." 2009. University of California. Web. 31 12 2014 . Libcom. Libcom.org. 2006. Web. 30 12 2014 . Miller, M. C. The News. 2002. Web. 30 12 2014 . Wood, P. "Commodity." Critical Terms for Art History. Ed. R. S. Nelson and R. Shiff. 2nd. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996. 257-280. Print. Read More