Art Against Spectacle —Art and Design as a Response to Culture as a Perceptible Communication

Abstract

"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all life presents as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation."(Guy Debord, ”The Society of the Spectacle, para.l,1967) How all-pervading and ubiquitous the Spectacle has truly become...We have VR, AR, immersive technology but seem to have lost peripheral vision, so critical to creature survival in the animal kingdom that causes us humans to be blind and deaf to an oncoming train. Art against Spectacle was a project that engaged students of Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology in challenging the way millennials attribute value to their culture, society, relationships; and encouraged whether through art and design intervention can one create or inspire ”islands of authenticity/1 Through this paper we present a dialogue, a direction, a lens to pause and reflect on how deep—rooted and subliminal the dominance of this spectacle on our lives is and explore ways to step away from what Debord called a "social relation among people mediated by images.”