The Spectacle, the Social Web and You

http://jeffersonsnewspaper.org/tags/spectacle/

“The only historically justified tactic is extremist innovation” – Debord & Wolman, A User’s Guide to Détournement (1956)

I’ve been thinking about the Situationists for about a decade now, after learning of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle in some Propagandhi liner notes (I think) about a decade ago.  Sadly, after all that time, I’ve developed no great insights as to what the hell they were talking about.  I mean, I get the gist if that counts for anything, but I think to really grasp what they’re really getting at, one needs a graduate seminar and plenty of contextual knowledge.  Nevertheless, the shit is damn brilliant and informs my worldview in many ways (most of which are surely based on misreading).  Since presently, I do what one might call information work, and as a result have become heavily invested in the web and social networking, I’ll use this post to share some cool films by the Situationist International (SI), and briefly look at how the SI’s  ideas of spectacle, détournement, and separation apply to the social web.

Social networks as commodified existence…

I’ve always felt a certain ambivalence toward the Internet, particularly as it has become the prime mediator of social and professional interaction.  Obviously, we have experienced some real and perceived benefits due to our increasingly rapid

adoption of technology (defining “technology” is problematic in many of the same ways as “information,” but let’s put that aside and assume I mean computers and electronics and stuff).  We have increased economic opportunities (for some), more free time (theoretically), greater safety and efficiency, instant production and communication without regard to geography, and access to unbelievable amounts of information.  But we can just as easily indict technology for it’s less benign social, political, and economic effects.  A short list of technology’s less celebrated effects might include: modern global warfare, loss of personal privacy, environmental devastation, and political (as well as social, economic, and cultural) hegemony — all brought to new heights by liberatory (at first glance) technology such as industrial automation; steam, electrical, and combustion power; the telephone; modern media; and any number of innovations in digital computing.  Of course, what we currently colloquially refer to as “technology” — the Internet — is equally hailed in alternation as a force for democracy and a catalyst for democracy’s demise.  Obviously, both are true in their own argumentation, but miss the larger point altogether.

With the relatively recent explosion of Web 2-point-oh!, social networks, etc., we see something notably different than what was experienced with earlier technologies.  Machines, electricity, cars, televisions, and the like, were all transformative and initially liberated in some sense; addressing (and inventing) needs, and conferring legitimacy and status to their early consumers.   In those regards, the Web is not different.  Where it departs from previous innovations is that it goes beyond creating, serving, and reinforcing consumer identity and consumer culture into actually displacing and disappearing the consumer as he exists in reality.  Debord identified this tendency in …the Spectacle as it relates to earlier (1960s) cultural conditions, but it is ripe for application to the 21st century, with it’s ravenous tech fetishism and fascination with identity construction and maintenence through social networks.

As you may have guessed, I recently picked up Society of the Spectacle for some rereading and found that basically the entirety of the first chapter is as effective a deconstruction of 21st c. new media culture as it was of television, films, and advertising in 1967.  Here’s a sample…

1

In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.

2

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.

3

The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.

4

The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

5

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.

6

Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the project of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.

I could continue quoting ad nauseum (actually, you may already be throwing up), but I’ll leave it to the reader to read more if they choose.  In the end, I’m still not sure where I stand on this.  I like the internet.  It’s amusing and often useful.  And as a worker in information and technology, I am actually not alienated from my own work.  More than ever, I have a high degree of control over the products of my labor. While I see the potential harm of these evolving conditions, I mostly see them in the bizarrely onanistic tweets/status updates of others.  I, naturally, am able to rise above the unreality of mediated life — so much so that I’m thinking about purchasing an island timeshare in Second Life to serve as respite for my World of Warcraft guild.  This, of course, would be done as an act of serious-parodic détournement (not to be confused with shallow irony), and thus would not be lame.

Détournement…

So, what is détournement?  A quick but insufficient answer might be found reference to hip hop, web mashups, Marcel Duchamp, or Adbusters. “In détournement, an artist reuses elements of well-known media to create a new work with a different message, often one opposed to the original” (Wikipedia).  A common example (though I’m not sure it was ever actually produced) would be to take the footage of The Birth of a Nation, and replace the text panels of that technical masterpiece with new music or text which would change (or détourne) the original meaning, from an egregiously racist historical lie, to something that crafts from the film’s intellectual content and technical strength an effective (and modern/correct/relevant) moral-political statement.  As Debord & Wolman point out (1956), if such a project merely attempts to negate the meaning through irony, counter-argument or comedic juxtaposition, it misses the opportunity and the point.  The best example I’ve seen, which serves as a better instruction than I can write, is René Viénet’s Can Dialectics Break Bricks?.

Film: Can Dialectics Break Bricks?: René Viénet, 1973: via U B U W E B

I’m not a great fan of the Debord films, though they do nicely illustrate, literally, the idea of the spectacular as it permeates our collective media life.  As with social

networks, academia and high culture, the images Debord détournes in Society of the Spectacle are, individually and collectively, simultaneously useful, beautiful, and

inspiring, as well as banal, authoritarian and vacuous. Like all cultural products, their meanings are contextual and constructed and can serve many masters at once.  The

same is true of new media products, services, and cultural tendencies.

Film: Society of the Spectacle, parts 1 & 2: Guy Debord, 1973: via U B U W E B

Although new media culture has some very deep differences from traditional media culture working in its favor (openness, decentralization, interactivity), it’s yet to be seen how that will change over time.  Likewise, will the ubiquity of web-mediated social interaction continue on its current trajectory (whatever that might be is actually unclear), or will it evolve into new and unexpected forms?  I’ve got this idea that the (social) web is the perfect vehicle for détournement, though I’m less convinced it’s a worthy venue for cultural resistance.  Any thoughts?

Unit Structureshttp://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/09/facebook-generations-identity-archive.html

Unit Structures has moved! Please visit my new blog at http://fstutzman.com.

Facebook: A Generation's Identity Archive Posted 9/05/2006 11:13:00 AM | 12 comments

This morning, millions of college students are thinking differently

about their online identity. The reason? Facebook, the industry-leading

college social networking website, introduced "feeds" last night. Feeds are

pretty simple - they're a running list of what you've been doing in the

Facebook. For example, if you add a friend, update your relationship

status, upload photos - this all gets dumped into a feed, viewable by

anyone that can view your account.

The logic that went into such a feature is easy to explicate. When you've

got 200-400 friends in Facebook, it is impossible to keep track of them all.

Remember when we had to keep track of 30 blogs manually? It sucked.

And we solved that problem with RSS - let the updates come to us.

Facebook has taken this notion and applied it to our lives. Facebook knows

that its userbase uses the service to "keep up" with people - continuous

social research, if you like - so this addition appeals to very base motives

of Facebook users. Clearly, this is an idea that sounded great on paper.

In reality, however, this gets messy. Let's get some background. First, I'm

convinced that many young users of Facebook don't look at the site as a

social networking service per se. This generation has been socialized on

Xanga, LJ and forums - they are comfortable and used to the idea of being

on a social website. The Facebook simply represents another game-like

social website that they are on - nothing more. Second, digital identity,

like that presented in the Facebook, thrives because it is temporal. You

can change your identity at the drop of a hat - you can become a liberal or

conservative at the push of a button, change your interests an hobbies on

a whim. The point is, you're always presenting the identity you want to

present - you never have to worry about the identity you used to present.

I believe that identity disclosure is so high in the Facebook for the first

reason I cited - students see this as a game, something that is

qualitatively less than real. Students disclose lots of real information, but

they also disclose lots of false information. The key to winning in the

Facebook is maintaining a good mixture of the real and false information.

Implicit in this is the reality that you can always change the fake

information, when you want - you can rewrite history at any time.

This morning, millions of students were shown that they can't actually

rewrite history. Everything they do, all of the groups they join and

interests they state or friends they make - it is all being recorded. Not only

is it being recorded, it is being presented as content to other users of the

Facebook. The Facebook is no longer just a current method of

identity presentation, it is an archive of our digital identity. This is

a cold, hard reality for students, and you're seeing a lot of public venting

of discomfort as a result.

So lets prognosticate a little, and see what might happen to the Facebook,

now that entire userbase is acutely aware of the fact that everything they

do is being recorded and shared with the world.

First, I believe this move will cause a lot of mental discomfort to

students who hadn't really thought through online identity. They will be

presented with all of the changes from their friends and realize that they,

too, are having every minute change in their identity fed to hundreds of

others.

Second, I believe students will be forced to rethink how they

socialize in the Facebook. Facebook has reached a critical mass among

college-age students, and my research has shown that many students on

the Facebook now use the service heavily for out-of-network connections.

Their cousins, old friends, brothers and sisters are on the Facebook.

Knowing that everything they do will be presented to their entire network

will have a chilling effect. Here's an example: A student posts a change to

their profile late at night, as a joke for a friend. That student knows that

likely, only a few people will see his change, and he can revert it in the

morning. With the new Facebook, that change is now broadcast to the

entire network - and it is saved in an identity archive - the feed.

Finally, I believe this change will wake students up to the realities of

sharing identity information online. Granted, it won't wake them up much,

but it may just convince them that these sites aren't really games. It may

also convince them to think of the future repercussions of sharing

information anywhere - not only in the Facebook but in Bebo, Myspace,

Hi5, Xuqa and the like.

Personally, I don't believe this is a horrible move for Facebook. They took a

pre-existing model (RSS) and applied it to identity. What they may not

have done is thought deeply about how their users approach identity.

People love exploring each other, but we don't want to leave traces

behind. We don't want people to be able to see if we've viewed the

profiles of others. We don't want people to know if we decline their friend

requests. Social networkingsSystems must enforce basic structural rules

for trust to occur, I believe "not leaving traces behind" may turn out to be

one of those rules.

Of course, Facebook has stated that feeds are subject to all privacy

controls. You can opt out of the system totally, or on a case-by-case basis.

However, opting out of sharing in these services, where sharing is

incentivized, creates issues of inequality in the system. Students who opt-

out aren't playing the game fairly, more or less.

Reaction to the service has been mixed, with Techcrunch's Arrington

giving a neutral review (mostly a recounting of the features). The

comment thread was less friendly. Over on the developer forum, a self-

selected bunch of power users are engaging in threads with names such

as "Why are people allowed to stalk every move I make now" and "Stop it -

I almost cancelled my account today!".

While an interesting move, I do believe that a gradual rollout or more in-

depth consideration of user's privacy concerns would have benefited

Facebook. The Facebook seems to be run by a group of extremely

determined Facebookers (many were early and full-immersion adopters),

so it is possible that groupthink effects have caused the team to lose some

focus of the average user.

The takeaway here is that Facebook, like it or not, has brought to bear a

very real issue in online identity. Everything we do in public or semi-public

spheres can be tracked and chronicled. We don't see our digital footprints

as much because systems haven't cropped up to collect them, but

collecting them is trivial. Facebook has simply put one of those systems in

front of us - wrapped up nicely as a feature - but it isn't hard to see the

reality. As we grapple with this reality - that our privacy is only a construct

of a system, and that our identity can be tracked and chronicled - how will

students change their behavior? We're really only at the tip of this iceberg,

but with Facebook's new features, we've accelerated this discussion

substantially.

P.S. - I should also note that Facebook now has a official blog, which you

may want to check out. Hopefully they'll add an RSS feed soon

VIOLENT CONTRADICTION

H TT P: / / W W W. M A R X I S T S . O R G / R E F E R E N C E /A R C H I V E / D E B O R D / S O C I E T Y. H T M ?

B C S I _ S C A N _ 8 FA 5 A 7 C F 6 9 9 7 2 F 3 9 = 0 & B C S I _ S C AN _ F I L E N A M E = S O C I E T Y. H T M

V I O L E N T C O N T R A D I C T I O N : T H E P A U L A . T O T H B L O G

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Guy Debord's Critique of Separation: A Review

Guy Debord's short Situationist film Critique of Separation (here's the link to the first part, from which you can access the second part) is just that and nothing more or less: a critique. The narrator's tone is monotone or even depressed, as if he's suffering a hangover. His key point: we're separated from everything: one another; history; and, most importantly, adventure. Boredom is the result: "No adventure is created for us." However, I believe his point in that case pointed to one Situationist solution that is not further elucidated in the film: we have to make our own adventures.

Like an existentialist minus the self-created meaning or acts in either good or bad faith, Debord notes the "necessity of repetition"

in making ourselves understood, a luxury we're rarely afforded. We part company misunderstood. There's "nothing you can hold onto." There's only the "blunt realization of our unfulfilled needs." As to world events, he rightfully claims that "the world of leaders is the world of spectacle." We "remain outside the news." We're so local that everything is distant.

The footage accompanying this narration never interests the viewer; it reflects the narration. Nothing happens in the film beyond a few brief moments of media spectacles from which we're denied access. The world in which we live can "generate nothing more than separation."

Throughout the film, Debord remains uninterested in offering solutions and perhaps disinterested, period. This is clearly purposeful; his critique leaves no room for modulation of the voice, no reason for it at all. The closest he comes to any kind of suggested action proves negative in the mathematical sense: "It is necessary to destroy memory in art." That statement can be interpreted in any number of ways; I will leave the reader to his or her own interpretation. Mine is skewed by the absurdly baroque music playing throughout the film. Debord is obviously not a man for whom tradition matters, except to dryly mock it.

Were this a two-hour film, Debord's intentionally-monotonous approach would become unbearable. But because it lasts just under twenty minutes, one can watch and reach conclusions about Debord's conclusions. Even at this short length, the film produces an edgy viewer. It negates all expectations even of a Situationist film because Debord does not offer Situationist answers, only criticism. To me, the criticism remains valid today.

One note: prepare to squint while reading the subtitles; they're rather difficult to see. On the other hand, you won't miss much on the screen. Therefore, concentrate on the text and watch what you can in the breaks from narration.

http://vodpod.com/watch/3082667-youtube-guy-debord-critique-of-separation-part-two-english-subtitles

http://www.bookrags.com/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle