CUL121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Schapelle Corby, Budgerigar, Bangkok
28 Aug 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Seeing spectacles
* defining visional spectacle of the 21st century
* cant seperate visual events from our emotional investments
* Notions of the event and the spectacle-what is it?
* war/terror/history as spectacle
* news events as soap opera/spectacle
* politics of affect/emotion
* spectacles and the construction of nation
* spectacles and the construction of difference
* In society of the spectacle Guy Debora argues:
* All of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly
lived has moved away into a representation… The spectacle is… a social relation among people,
mediated by images. The spectacle … is a world vision, which has become objectified… in all its
specific forms, as information or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment
consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life… The spectacles form
and content are identically the total justification of the existing system’s conditions and goals
(Debord 1999:95-96)
* Were the images from the moon real or constructed?
* To what extend was the event financially motivated?
* In what way was the vent connected to the construction of America as an imagined community?
* Did the landing have a relationship to the Vietnam war?
* What was the relationship between the space race and global power?
* the methods for the management of attention
* epic visual history/spectacle
* signs of ‘historicity’
* spectacle as attraction-more than truth or accuracy
* colour as metaphor for colourful events or rich histories
* epic= larger than life
* history in the present tense
* popular audiences have become involved in and understand the stakes in historical
representation, they recognise “history in the making”, and see themselves not only as
spectators of history, but also as participants in and adjudicators of it… “history happens” now in
the public sphere… (Sobchack, 1996)
* Politics of affect:
* ‘the production and reduction of events in terms of an immediate, unconsidered
emotional reaction’ (Shirato and Webb, 2004:180)
* Michael Jackson: the Jackson spectacle
* dose of unmediated realness;
* The real Michael Jackson did not give evidence. Tv cameras were barred from the proceedings.
* Actor Edward Moss played Jackson in the dramatic Sky News Tv reconstructions
* If Michael had been in Iran
* debord argues that democracy uses terrorism as its undemocratic other to keep its behaviour
acceptable/rational
* a story breaks
* an attractive young Australian women travels to south east Asia
* at the airport she is stopped by customs official and questioned
* they open her belongings and find a seizable amount of illicit drugs
* she is detained in a local prison
* After some months her case goes to trial and she is found guilty. She is…
* Nicole Kidman in Bankok Hilton (1990)
* innocent white girl and evil asian men (barbarian)
* The Bali nine, Sarah Connor
* cycle of reproduction, substitution, collection, categorising, representation and repetition…
* Schapelle as Spectacle
* the Australian way of life is a fair one, consumption and importance
* More spectacles: Bali boy (2012), Schapelle 2014, Isis Assassin 2014 (the covering of the face)
* Bali cases/events:
Document Summary
* defining visional spectacle of the 21st century. * cant seperate visual events from our emotional investments. * in society of the spectacle guy debora argues: * all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation the spectacle is a social relation among people, mediated by images. * the methods for the management of attention. * spectacle as attraction-more than truth or accuracy. * colour as metaphor for colourful events or rich histories. * (cid:1684)the production and reduction of events in terms of an immediate, unconsidered emotional reaction(cid:1685) (shirato and webb, 2004:180) * the real michael jackson did not give evidence. * actor edward moss played jackson in the dramatic sky news tv reconstructions. * debord argues that democracy uses terrorism as its undemocratic other to keep its behaviour acceptable/rational. * an attractive young australian women travels to south east asia.
