In Closing
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man…
John Donne, The Ecstasy
Creation of the spectacle is a necessary part of modern human existence. As we begin to interact in increasingly virtual, synthetic environments, our separation from nature and increased auto-referential cosmology becomes further and further separated from Merleau-Ponty’s le corps sujet while simultaneously creating an increasingly intimate and personal experience of reality. A heightened sense of solipsism as it were. The real world becomes more distant as the dream world becomes more real, but the dream world also begins to absorb all aspects of the real world. In a sense, as mind becomes the ultimate observer of an increasingly self-created reality, the sense of the universe observing itself through our eyes becomes more palpable.
The spectacle which we are constantly creating becomes both more separate from reality, and more immutable.
“The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.” – André Malraux