Spectacle

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

 

Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-­world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images­ of­ the­ world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such, the autonomous movement of non-­life.

 

The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification. As a part of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all consciousness. Due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of generalized separation.

 

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

 

― Guy Debord, Society Of The Spectacle

 

 

This series of photos captured Shanghai’s city scenes, as the photographer took an urban hike from the hustle and bustle city center to the dismal suburb where migrational workers reside.