FILM 3660 1nd Edition Lecture 11 Outline of Last Lecture September 26 2014 I Notes for Chapter 5 6 Quiz The Society of Spectacle Outline of Current Lecture September 28th 2014 1 Overview of Reification 2 Spectacle Religion 3 Commodity Fetishism 4 Media Stars 5 Pseudo Cyclical Time 6 De Differentiation 7 The Solution 8 The End of Art 9 Structure of Debord 10 Detournement Current Lecture Reification Impression of inanimate The fluid nature of anatomy becomes still in order to be responsible for our lives 10 places to go before you die 10 movies to watch before you die etc the responsibility is taken from a pre programmed set of lists For one to whom the real world becomes real images Real Images are transformed into real beings tangible figments that are the efficient motor of translike behavior we watch the world pass before us and no longer create history WHY IMAGES We have made an alive world of images and money and we as individuals are stuck in a trans like inanimate inactive behavior The spectacle is immune to human activity it is not something we engage with We receive it passively with no agency The more we are contemplative the more we are dispossessed Relationship between Spectacle Religions Moral repression Religion and family were institutions that gave structure and shape to our lives by moral repression get in line act like These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute everyone else THEY DON T anymore Spectacle has taken over and encourages pleasure in this current life But it still functions like religion because the spectacle still has rules to keep us in line We use to worship Gods now we worship commodities the things we buy Commodity Fetishism Our Commodities become mystical object connect to reification We don t just buy things we use we buy things we display Polo horse t shirt we don t care what it looks like it has the horse Media Star If you get board of one commodity a media star brings along another one to get you interested again Someone is living the life of leisure and wealth someone in spotlight is opposite of what humans should be They are enemies of us Stars are a product of what the people watching want to see media crafted image is what we strive for and relate with They have a policing function and we depend on them to lead us we try to emulate an impossible image and we are always going to come up empty Pseudo Cyclical Time We consume things that impede us from living a historical life Not only what we produce but also during down time we are being swayed by commodity Not only does consumerism take over what we work and do during the day it takes over our leisure time too De Differentiation The belief that there is no difference between production and consumption Ex Augmented Survival The more we give ourselves our artificial environment and the more often this environment refresh s and adapts the less we feel the need to live All we do is act The quality of life is only to keep up before we are left behind It is not the years in your life it is the life in your years Okay you are right What is the solution Debord says a playful existence How do we experiences ourselves when we are playing The poet creates a poem but in playful existence we enjoy things while they are happening the experience is enough to meet our needs Living itself is the fundamental activity we are doing Being in the moment and enjoying it but most times we are interested in the result the end product the object produced Playful the act of living it is more important then the product The End of Art Why is art a problem It is one more distraction from living Culture is the meaning of an insufficiently meaningful world We seek refuge in art because we are unsatisfied But that refuge is always incomplete and one sided Art as a separate sphere cannot continue Art must be transcended Debord wants a generalized playfulness to all society Structure of Debord 1 Unity 2 Separation between intellectual art and manual labor 3 Transcendence of separation art is not going to save us it is going to make us into historical people Detournement Not an accumulation once we understand language and we understand it in a new way Swapping lives with our things This is the aesthetic solution to rectification It Top Hat Question The basic figure of Arte Povera artistic production is A juxtaposition of the artisinal and the technospectacular