The Society of the Spectacle

The story

Since 1967, Guy Debord’s critical manifesto ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ has been an essentiel theoretical basis for any attempt to analyse the capitalist society of images that permeates every aspect of life in the Western world. We live in a continuous sensory bombardment of distractions that keep us in the role of passive consumers – a condition that has not exactly improved since the revolutionary 60s. What to do? And how do you film a notoriously complicated theory that attacks the very image itself? Artist Roxy Farhat and filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson (‘Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975’) bring Guy Debord’s ideas into the 21st century. Guy Debord’s own (anti)films are given a modern counterpoint by satirical interventions in a visual work that is not afraid to criticise neither itself nor the cult around Debord and situationism.