The issue of the audience and the spectacle

If Guy Debord were alive today he might just shoot himself.
Oops, bad joke.

But...
With communication as fast and complex as it is in today’s society embedded with ads visual and otherwise, and with the subsequent rise of the power of the media over society, Debord in a 21st C. world might have a proverbial French cow based his essay written in 1957. Individuals or workers as consumers caught up in the “spectacle” pretty much sums up some aspects of modern society as far as I can see. Apparently, whether what is said or seen is true or not may not matter either. But, I guess we don’t have to participate. We can alienate ourselves. And that might reference Marx’s theories of alienation.

The idea of détournement as a redirection of images and dérive referencing the flow of acts to create change can be important from an artist’s standpoint. Particularly art which requires the participation of an audience.

But who the audience is, the time period, and the location can matter and have an influence on the outcome. An audience’s role in the results can vary, as shown in Beuys/Schwarze documentation of Report on a Day’s Proceedings at the Bureau for Direct Democracy (1972). Kaprow’s (1966) assertion that the audience for Happenings would vary dependent on where, the time it took place, and what an audience member’s own individual interest in the Happening itself might be and thus their involvement is pretty much spot on. And that unknown factor regarding the audience and the element of chance is what makes it interesting.