Spectacle, Research and My Understanding of Guy Debord
My task was to make a piece of work around the concept of spectacle no longer than three minutes. The obstruction was that no cut could last longer than 12 frames (about half a second).
I studied ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ by Guy Debord (a French Marxist theorist) and learned a lot from three early points in particular:
“The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.”
“The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.”
“The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual excess produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective.”
Society of the Spectacle Cover
I found the book to be pretty mind-boggling, but from these points I came to understand at least a little about what Spectacle actually is: A representation of reality that can be used and abused. These three points immediately were the ones that made a lot of sense to me and I strongly agree with them. I think that using and abusing representations of reality is something the media can do to control the public, like broadcasting only certain information or even misleading information about particular events or occurrences, etc. All to keep those in power in power and to keep the public thinking they have power.
After thinking for over a week and a half about what artifact I could create, as well as an interesting concept, I had come up with a lot of rubbish-to-average ideas that could easily be bashed out. However, it isn’t really my nature nowadays to make something unless I feel it’s worth making.
Luckily, after talking about the concept of spectacle with my girlfriend, I hit upon an idea that I thought would portray it quite well.
My piece shows the work of René Magritte from his series of paintings ‘The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images 1928-29)’ .
This is not a pipe.
What I am showing with my piece is how the media is able to manipulate an image of any kind to suit their needs or desires (smoking the image of a pipe) which is primarily what spectacle is; a manipulatable representation of reality.
Upon discussion with my friends Alam and Luke, we came to the conclusion that our films would work much better as a compilation of three shown through an image of a TV, the media’s greatest weapon. I had to do a little research into Adobe Premiere Pro (the editing software I use) to figure out how to chromo key an image (use green screen) but it’s pretty simple now that I think about it.
I had to use Photoshop with this image of a TV to give it a green screen.
Retro TV with Green Screen Effect
Using these techniques I was able to fully portray my film as I wanted it to be.
I am proud of what I made and I think the film works, but I would consider only taking my main segment forward (the smoking man) and to transpose it into an installation piece. I think that there’s more to the film that is needed and that as an installation piece it will just as well portray the point I am trying to make, as well as trimming the fat.
The way the film is edited is an allusion to the first obstruction of ‘De Fem benspænd’. ‘The Five Obstructions’ is a 2003 film by Lars Von Trier and Jørgen Leth. The film is a documentary, but incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films produced by the filmmakers. The premise is that Lars Von Trier has created a challenge for his friend and mentor, Jørgen Leth, another filmmaker. Von Trier’s favourite film is Leth’s ‘The Perfect Human’ (1967). Von Trier gives Leth the task of remaking ‘The Perfect Human’ five times, each time with a different ‘obstruction’ (or obstacle) given by Von Trier.
