‘Workers do not produce themselves, they produce a power independent of themselves. The success of this production, the abundance it generates, is experienced by the producers as an abundance of dispossession. As their alienated products accumulate, all time and space become foreign to them. The spectacle is the map of this new world—a map that is identical to the territory it represents. The forces that have escaped us display themselves to us in all their power.’
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (London: Rebel Press, 1983 [1967]), p.16. ‘England supports Chile's independence. Isabel II of Spain has the city bombarded. The final shudder of the thwarted coloniser. In its turn the ground opens up. Earthquakes, floods, fires, cyclones and looting. This was to be the fate of this peace-loving people. And it did not end there.
A cartoon satirising "Uncle Sam", driving a nail into Panama.. A mermaid watches over a ship. A bunch of seaweed, conjuring up streaming hair, floats in the troughs of the waves. Then different statues of mermaids. But when is there an end? The mermaids in the harbour have not ended their song. They are there, watching, listening, waiting.' Chris Marker, script for ... A Valparaiso, in Rosalind Delmar, Joris Ivens: 50 years of filmmaking (London: BFI, 1979), p.96. |
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