The Image and The Spectacle (AKA CMN 2180B - Fall 2019 - Class 4)
Class 4 examined how, where and when we encounter popular culture in our everyday lives.
We began by considering the concept of the image, which Betts & Bly argue is the principal medium through which popular culture is expressed. If we pause to think about this statement for a moment, we’ll realize that the image really IS everywhere. We see images on television and movies (moving images, but still images), in art and comic books, on Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder and pretty much any other dating site, in video games, on billboards, and in magazines, to name but a few places.
These images are altered, manipulated and enhanced to optimize our viewing pleasure (and their effect). Sam Neill, pictured below in a scene from Jurassic Park (1993), was never filmed with a dinosaur, but through special effects and computer-generated animation, it sure looked like he had been.
The alteration of images isn’t limited to film and television. We see it, for example, on Instagram when filters are applied to literally all of our photos and in memes where a visual alteration allows a person or scene to be smoothly melded into another time or era. This is known as retroscopy or object cloning.
Digitally altered photography leaves no trace, creating a situation where we (the audience) is unable to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. The hyperreal, argues Baudrillard, changes our way of seeing art and raises questions with regards to authenticity. It also asks us to consider whether authenticity even matters. Think about Instagram, does it matter that we filter the majority of our photos? Or that we carefully and diligently cultivate the photos that we share?
It does. In fact, it supports the notion that the contemporary world can be defined as one of carefully constructed appearances - images - and exhibitions - performances - which shape our reality and define our person.
What this has led to is a sponsored life, where everything is a sales pitch - for the places we go, the clothes we wear, for ourselves. The logos and emblems we wear and display are signs - they have become personality-defining (or personality-enhancing) and allow the person wearing them to gain access to groups distinguished by that product, that brand, that logo. These signs become associated with a lifestyle and we, in effect, become unpaid advertising for related products.
The image is but a snapshot from the (public) performance of ourselves at a specific place and time. This performance is both intentionally planned and carefully arranged. In other words, it is staged. It is a spectacle.
Spectacles, like images, occur all around us. Wherever an activity or place is set up or rearranged to ensure entertainment and to draw our gaze, we encounter the spectacular. Political conventions, theme parks, rock concerts, even the opening of the LRT are all pre-packaged and strategically prepared.
Tourism is one example of such spectacle. It’s both a momentary escape from our everyday life and opportunity to “experience heritage”. This experience, however, is carefully constructed and strategically presented to the tourist audience. Tourism has actually been criticized as being a form of cultural imperialism and exploitation, subjecting local populations and institutions to the Western gaze.
Concepts like the image and the spectacle raise important questions regarding authenticity and role of popular culture in our everyday life. If, as Betts & Bly (and Shakespeare) suggest, “all the world’s a stage” and everything that we encounter is carefully constructed and displayed, what does that mean for the images that we encounter and the images we convey?