The wonders of Spectacles

    Covid-19 hit the world by storm. It had taken lives and became our new normal. Theories that present this global pandemic are the ideas that society is changing. “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images”. This quote can be related to our situation of how the pandemic has converted our interpersonal interactions with others to become distant. Debord observed that the spectacle actively alters human interactions and relationships. Images influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis; advertising manufactures new desires and aspirations. The second quote “The images detached from every aspect of life fuse in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished. Reality considered partially unfolds, in its own general unity, as a pseudo-world apart, an object of mere contemplation". "The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living". This quote explains how an image is a non-living object that is seen by many individuals to be more than that, it can be related to this pandemic by how it has affected our everyday lives and how a disease can change everything.

“The society based on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectacles. In the spectacle the visual reflection of the ruling economic order goals are nothing, development is everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself”.Debord’s understanding of this quote is how society was built to progress into an economic system to be able to progress as a whole. “The more his life is now his product, the more he is separated from his life”. This quote means that people become attached to objects and things such as technology and let that item be their lives. The more society becomes so focused on materialistic items, the more things won’t progress. As spectators, we regularly experience advertisements for rival products such as  Pepsi and Coca-Cola. For instance, a television drama depicting an AA meeting might be preceded by a glamorous vodka advertisement. Such logical inconsistencies are buried by the spectacle’s relentless proffering of goods and imagery. "When the real world is transformed into mere images, mere images become real beings figments that provide the direct motivations for a hypnotic behavior. It is whatever escapes people’s activity, whatever eludes their practical reconsideration and correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle regenerates itself”. In this quote, Debord explains how images are more than just pictures but a story being told that can be seen.

    These theories that Debord’s analyses in the article relates to the pandemic that we are all facing in many ways. He explains how the spectacles can be numerous things. It can be either good to us or evil. It can be an obsessive addiction such as social media that we get caught in and forget about everything else. Debord observed that the spectacle actively alters human interactions and relationships. Images influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis, for example advertising manufactures new desires and aspirations. The media interprets and reduces the world for us with the use of simple narratives. Photography and film collapses time and geographic distance  providing us with the illusion of universal connectivity. Debord's work can be related to  many of the artists we discussed in class for example Jean Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol because both artists were judged and criticized  for the way that the artist made it represent. They were seemed as childish and Warhol's work was deemed controversial. In other words the spectacle can be a fantasy world that an individual creates to escape. The spectacle can be a beautiful thing that changes the way of living. This pandemic has created a different dynamic of how to view certain things. In a world full of uncertainty, it its most certain that drifting away from the spectacles that we create for ourselves to escape our realities is important .