Did anyone understand anything about The Society of the Spectacle?
With Maxime Morin, Auriane Velten, and Saul Pandelakis
Hosted by Patrick Cockpit
A subversive critique of the dominant order, a manifesto with somewhat hermetic content and, above all, incomprehensible without its Marxist conceptual framework, Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle has enjoyed a surprising legacy.
Now part of everyday language, the expression "society of the spectacle" intuitively seems to describe the consumer society in which we live, a world saturated with spectacular entertainment that overlays the reality of social relations to the point of obscuring them.
Our relationship with the media, with screens, from the spectacularization of information to the staging of self on social networks, not to mention the omnipresent advertising, everything seems like a spectacle.
The problem is that Capitalism, with its remarkable ability to absorb its own criticisms, will quickly lose its effectiveness, with some critics blaming everything on a youth dumbed down by TikTok influencers, or accusing a society of narcissistic individuals who have lost all sense of authenticity…
So, how can we be critical of the entertainment and spectacle industries without unwittingly feeding the new spirit of Capitalism? Can the work of Guy Debord help us, and what does it still have to tell us?
This roundtable discussion, reminiscent of "Debord for Dummies," will not aim to establish an orthodox reading group, but rather to initiate an exchange of viewpoints between artists and writers on this theme.
With Situations (published by Bandes Détournées, 2023), Maxime Morin and tienstiens have taken on the challenge of offering, in comic book form, an inspired and offbeat reading of *The Society of the Spectacle*, updated through their references to mainstream cultural productions, which they subvert by exposing their mechanisms with biting irony. A funny work, sometimes bordering on the absurd, that doesn't forget to be political.
They will be in conversation with two authors who have explored in their writing the question of images, their media coverage, their use by the established order, and how they shape relationships between people.
Roundtable discussion as part of the 12th edition of the Les Intergalactiques festival "Du Pain et des Jeux" on Saturday, April 20, 2024.
🚀 https://intergalactiques.net