GUY DEBORD 1967
“The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated through images” (Debord).
Debord draws on Marxist theories of Alienation, Commodity Fetishism and False Consciousness. In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation, reality has stated to become a representation. With other means of communication available such as MSN Messenger, Skype, Facebook, and mobile phones, human contact and communication is increasingly restricted.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance. The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible, but it is all one sees.
The consciousness of desire and the desire for consciousness are identical, the project which in its negative form seeks the abolition of classes, the workers direct possession of every aspect of their activity. Its opposite is the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world it has created.
