‘The spectacle is the epic poem of this strife – a strife that no fall of Ilium can bring to an end. Of arms and the man the spectacle does not sing, but rather of passions and the commodity’
(Debord §66)
Introduction
Smiling men, building careers while drinking orange juice. This is the feeling I get when I look at the Allerhande’s test panel for orange juice. This test panel poses to inform me about the qualities of three different orange juices. The panel consist of three ‘breakfast specialists’ who professionally take care of the breakfast at the Dylan Hotel in Amsterdam. After reading this article I will be better informed as to which orange juice is the most suitable for me.
This is the first reading, the most apparent reading, and perhaps a reading that not many informed or educated people will make. We can easily see, there is no real choice here. Every ‘choice’ you would make is in the benefit of the Albert Heijn. The whole magazine is in an advertisement for the Albert Heijn, and at no point does the Albert Heijn attempt to contest this. In doing so it maintains a level of integrity necessary to promote and sell their products. Necessary to put to rest concerns, to dull the senses while the drums of commerce beat on and the readers fall farther into their somnambulistic trance. By reading this, no matter what we buy, we know that the Albert Heijn wins. They don’t even need to promote their own orange juice above the other two brands.
In a deeper reading, we go beyond the scope of orange juice, Albert Heijn and even supermarkets. The spectacle is everywhere and not in the least place in this example. What we can also see promoted here is the image of the three gentlemen and the orderly yet playful layout. The three gentlemen look sophisticated, professional – not a stitch is out of place – happy, caring and they certainly exude a sense of joie de vivre. The most distinguished man with the grey suit and a slightly larger glass also subtly alludes to the necessary hierarchy. The image is almost too good to be true. Here we can see a modern day version of what Debord might call the Stars in which we can recognize ourselves. They have what we want.
They are Stars — spectacular representations of living human beings — who project this general banality into images of possible roles. As specialists of apparent life, stars serve as superficial objects that people can identify with in order to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations that they actually live. (Debord §60)
The spectacle tries to represent the wholeness. We can understand that the actual lives of our Stars are fragmented just as our own, but they are presented with a sense of wholeness, contentment and completeness that we would wish to emulate. The spectacle that is fueled by the desires of men, and constantly recreated by commerce. Always just ahead of us, it leaves us alienated from life hoping to complete ourselves by practicing what it preaches.
Of passions and the commodity
The manner in which Debord describes the spectacle, is not so much as a carefully orchestrated structure, but rather as an almost inevitable emergent phenomenon that thrusts itself forward through a combination of human desire and commodity. In any emergent structure, we see that the constituent parts are of a different nature than the large-scale processes. In this example it is no different. The aim of this image, and images like it, is to promote the commodity by awakening its most positive associations.
The article ingeniously leads us from validation of the roles of the panel – ‘These gentlemen care for the breakfast in the Dylan hotel in Amsterdam’ – to their expert opinions. From here it moves on to the products with a simple and almost childlike summary or recommendation (Jurgen: ‘lekker zacht vruchtvlees’ – ‘nice and soft pulp’). In The Society of Spectacle Debord notes that: ‘The consumer’s compulsion to imitate is a truly infantile need, conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental dispossession.’ (Debord §219). The use of the innocent childlike typography in the summary acts as a bridge to consolidate the consumer’s compulsion with the expert opinion of the Stars. Finally, the tastes good with element summarizes some of the most positive references we could have to orange juice; a Sunday morning breakfast with small pancakes, or croissants. The image of orange juice alone is not satisfactory, it is far less potent. We wish to experience the whole as well as the parts, induced by the infantile need Debord speaks about. This process beacons us to no longer produce or design your own life , but that of the spectacle. You can drink your orange juice at a self-made Bjursta table.
It is difficult to imagine how society could get caught up in a spectacle such as Debord describes, as it does not seem as if it would be a world of anyone’s choosing. The intent of our chosen image is to promote a commodity. Yet in our analysis we can clearly discover elements that would lead us to believe that the spectacle is present in this article. In the next paragraph we will explore how the spectacle detaches itself. In this we find the transgression from the subject as reader – through the promotion of commodities – to the creator and viewer of the spectacle.
The spectacle detaches itself
‘The more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires’(Debord §30).
But what does it mean that ‘the spectacle’ presents to us these three perfectly manicured gentlemen who seem to be living in the sunshine of life? By itself, maybe not so much. As stated earlier, as an educated and informed reader, we can conceive that what we see before us is nothing more than a pleasant illusion. It leaves us room to pursue our own dreams. But we are not only presented with these gentlemen. On page twenty-two of the Allerhande we can see what life would be like if we experimented more with Indian food, and in next month’s issue the test panel will be three ladies, who have been friends for thirty-two years, talking about tea. All appear to be possible paths to certain complete life, towards that which we all desire. We can obtain this through commodities, and if we were to work towards that goal, we could achieve a life of contentment and satisfaction. But by the time we are half way there, we will have been bombarded by a stream of new and alternative images which ultimately reinforce the individual’s isolation. It is this multiplicity and constant reinvention of the spectacle that it keeps us trapped as slaves in our vapid roles, always seemingly only one step away from the ideal. The obscenity of the spectacle comes to fruition through the multiplicity of unattainable ideals. ‘The economy of lust’ as Stefan Hertmans calls it. It doesn’t matter which perfect life we choose to mirror our own fragmented lives in.
The unattainable ideals are the result of the strife between commodities and images rather than conscious choice. Each commodity necessarily fights for the attention of the viewers, and images combined with the desire for a better life are a potent method for doing so. Increasingly use-value between similar products is becoming relatively equal. Exchange-value begins to obtain more and more importance. In our example we find orange juices competing for our attention. Orange juices that are not much different than one another, and certainly not much different than could be bought at other supermarkets. The product with the most successful image will generally be the most profitable, in turn reinforcing the original image. All we can do is look, listen and buy. ‘It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle regenerates itself’ (Debord §18). Coincidentally, the effectiveness of this test panel article is a result of the same processes that keep the spectacle alive – image and desire. In this we find a paradox: We are alienated from life, and believe to rediscover ourselves in the image as a whole, within the spectacle, a wholeness consisting of fragmented wholes.
Critical notion and conclusion
The spectacle can be seen as a reflection of the desire of men, as well as the force that evokes the desire. We can asks ourselves if it is the essence of man that the consumer creates his own illusion and becomes dependent upon it.
In paragraph eighteen Debord states that the spectacle is the opposite of dialogue. But, is this really true? As an emergent phenomenon, we could speak of an asymmetrical communication. The spectacle presents us with images of varying strength, or influence, and we, as viewers and consumers, choose and buy, thus promoting the images we see as most desirable. In effect, projecting our consensus desires in the media and ultimately animating them as new commodities in the world. In this we create our own carrot on a stick that draws us further. Using desire as our own propulsive power. Is there a limit to how far this carrot will eventually alienate us from life, or will we naturally select those images that are removed from life, but close enough to seem relatively attainable? Is an image so far removed from life still desirable to imitate? In our example we have found a modern day example of an image that can be seen as a form of the spectacle. The image out Allerhande is not an example that is not at all unheimlich, but something that is much closer to home. It is the mundane that has been promoted to the complete, the next-door-neighbor promoted to a Star. The ideal seems all the more possible.
We have taken a closer look at Allerhande’s September issue and tried to understand how and why the spectacle manifests itself in today’s magazine and how it is connected with the individual reader. I believe we can see that it is not so much the image that creates the problem, but foremost ‘in the society that needs those images’ (Jappe 8). I also believe we could have choose out of an immense variety of objects for this analysis, even your jeans. Those memes who have a symbiotic relationship with humans at the level of desire are everywhere. The spectacle is everywhere. Even in your pants.
Cited works
Debord, Guy. De Spektakelmaatschappij. Tr. Jaap Kloosterman en René van de Kraats.2e
druk. Amsterdam: De Dolle Hond, 2007.
Debord, Guy. ‘The Society of Spectacle’. The Situationist International Text Library.
www.nothingness.org. October 23rd 2010 .
Hertmans, Stefan. Het bedenkelijke.‘De paradox van het obscene’ 1e druk. p.11. Gent:
Boom Essay, 1999.
Jappe, Anselm. Guy Debord. tr. Donald Nicholson-Smith University of California Press,
1999.
‘Testpanel Sinaasappelsap.’ Allerhande, nr. 09 (Fall 2010): p. 74-75.
December 13th, 2010
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