Critical Reading of Crary's "Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory"

Johnathon Crary is a professor of Art History at Columbian University, and historian writer who has written of the media, cinema and subjectivity within twentieth-century modernity.

In ‘Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory’, Crary attempts to determine the origin of the “spectacle”; not merely situationist related, (as a response to modern art and contemporary capitalism), but also the term used by Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’, and to its wider implications in mass media, particularly television.
Early in his writing, Crary clearly points out the varying, typical meanings and uses found for the word, and how they may have changed dramatically since the turbulent and challenging 1960’s. But what interests Crary is how and why they have changed to “designate a certian set of objective conditions”[1] and has become part of a complex power establishment, a “constellation of forces and institutions”[2] that is strengthened by the abilities the spectacle offers and compells contemporary society. More importantly, Crary questions what can be done now to resist such impact, and thus begins his writing about the disparate ways that this understanding of “spectacle” has operated in different political methods, in order to subvert its different approaches. But, in all the examples given, the spectacle remains a word for describing the act of coercing belief from the general public in order to either scare them, subdue them or turn them into consumers like Benjamin’s concept of the ‘phantasmagoria of equality’. As already noted, Crary concentrates on attempting to connect spectacle with the history of television, which allows the finding of a specific date more focused.

The science historian, Bruno Latour has written extensively about the need for visual display (such as a covert graph) in order for the public to believe, so long as it is accompanied with an ‘inscription’ to translate. In Walter Benjamin’s case, the visible world is where a sence of hapiness can be adhered to with the “measurable...terms of signs and objects”[3] , but it is the act of copying and the “capactity to produce equivalences”[4] that the new classes initially subverted the power of the spectacle. Thus, the nineteenth century classes challenged the importance of originality by counterfeiting. The flow of Crary’s writing is suave, as he allows this response to lead us to the industrial revolutiuon and its explosion of the ‘unessential sectors of capitalism’ (according to Marx). The author defines the newly emerging meaning of spectacle, which I believe it has not wavered far from since, at this historical point “when sign-value takes precedence over use-value”[5].
T.J. Clark offers a reversal view, that instead, it was the “construction of an observer who was a precondition for the transformation of everyday life.” but I find it less consequential to exactly denote whether it was conditioning of market niches or conditioning of consumers, because in either case the spectacle has been utilized to first define and then continually strengthen coveting in western countries (and fear in communist states). Moreover, any resistance in these western markets is suitably digested by “converting them into objects or images of consumption”.[6]

Crary continues after briefly covering the history and operation of the spectacle, to finding exactly when it began. In this writing he persuades the reader to believe that it can be designated to an exact date, and furthermore that the date is 1927. This concept is aligned with Crary’s attempt to marry spectacle to television. The synchronic acts of the beginnings of monoplies in the United States by the division of control of television, with its actual invention (or at least, its perfection) demonstrates how much control the state, coporate, military sectors believed how useful this new technology would be with its “speed, ubiquity, and simultaneity.”[7] Above all, this new form of entertainment garnered attention more than its ancestors, due to synchronized sound. Now with more commanding authority, this new technology’s hypnotic abilities were fully realized.
But not all western countries that made use of Diffused spectacle shared the United State’s questionable subjectivity. Britian’s BBC and France’s RTF (Radio-telediffusion française) are state sponsored and regulated. There is a healthy tension between “opting boradly for more entertainment, and the pressure to provide public service information and eductaion”[8] is more heated in Britian than in the United States, where “broadcasting was commercially dominated from the start”[9] which Crary points out, was 1927. Nevertheless, they have to exist in a commercial environment. For example, the BBC supplements it’s revenue from licence fees by the sale of books, recordings and DVDs and also selling programmes to other countries. Yet even in this way they still squarely operate within the system supported by capitalism utilizing coveting and conveying an illusion of need for products. The BBC’s voice, personalized by it’s announcers and newsreaders “has evolved in a populist direction, claiming common ground with audiences, and often adopting a cynical, challenging and even aggressive stance to a variety of official institutions and personalities, including government ministers.”[10] But the common sense that these characters are based on contain “basic design features of contemporary capitalist society and its consumerist values.”[11]
In American movies and television soaps, products themselves are subtly added or become the main article of the narrative so as to be overlooked.
“For decades, ‘product placement’, the surreptitious but visible inclusion of consumer items in films and television, has made people around the world aware of the American way of life. Notice how emails and mobiles are taken for granted in these films (‘One Fine Day’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’), not simply clever new technology but integral to the plots, integral to the clever and up-to-date lives that Americans apparentlt lead.”[12]


The most popular constituent of television, that relies heavily on what Crary refers to as the “reign of the perpetual present”[13] is, of course, news coverage. The subjects a news network covers, (and their order), determines what becomes most important to a nation. The news language, who is said to ‘demand’ and who is said to ‘offer’, are some of the struggles that Crary refers to as “cultural-institutional formation with a suspicious structural autonomy”[14] . The language favours certain dominant classes and operates as mild social control. Even in the most useful of all types of programmes, coveting and capitalism still influence the larger sphere of activity.
“News is also a commodity. It is expensive to gather and distribute, and must produce an audience that is of the right size and composition to be sold to advertizers. In a cynical but productive phrase, news has been defined as “that which is printed on the back of advertisements.”[15]
The expense of news networks are almost exclusively tied to the emphasis on speed and the illusion of ‘nowness’ that is actively portrayed. Inbetween being startled by violence, informed by accounts, subdued by human interest story or shocked by sensationalism, the news is presented not only as unbiased, but also as fresh, undiluted truth. Often these aspects work against one another, as time and money dissipate and executive decisions are made in favour of ratings and prestige.
“News is as conventional as any other form of television; it’s conventions are so powerful and so uninspected because of the tyranny of the deadline requires the speed and efficiency that only conventions make possible.”[16]

“Most mass media are in the hands of big companies and are subject to the same sort of influences as any other capitalist enterprise. Media organizations can be subjected to a variety of commerical influences. In the west the majority of media organizations are themselves commercial undertakings....the need to maintain profitability is likely to be an influence on their activities.”[17]

However, I remained unconvinced that the year 1927 was truly the beginning of the spectacle, merely a landmark year in its continuing influence. Nations had persuaded thousands of citizens to believe in the causes of higher classes in the name of glory and honour only ten years prior, and the seeds for propaganda to start a new world war were already being spread through radio, and spectacles such as parades, violent protests and rallies. True, television most definantly dominated the remainder of the twentieth century as a ruthlessly used and powerful tool for mass control in terms of strengthening consumerism and creation of niche markets. But in terms of social control, effective forms existed before 1927. One example, given by Crary is Goebbels mailing 50,000 phonographic records of his speeches to potential voters. The difference lies in attention and guarantee of absorbability. But the Nazi party was conscious of the advantage of television, and led the world in developing broadcasts. They favoured group reception, also adopted in USSR, in a mass viewing environment, perhaps echoing similar emotions felt in rallies or parades. Yet, this proves that the spectacle existed before 1927, as the Concentrated spectacle relies upon quoting and improving already existing types of public persuasion. Even its western counterpart, Diffused spectacle, is based on modernizing older forms of spectacle, such as printmaking distribution of the Church and its enemies. Other forms of spectacle which the Diffused spectacle is based on are news heralding, church sermons, papal addresses, royal decrees, and commissioned art pieces.
Printmaking assisted control and domination of provinces far from centres of power, and also helped promote dialects. From 1468, with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, (slightly altered from wine-making) and metal type-faces, Europe became better connected but not necessarily better informed. The Reformation and the spread of bibles translated into the vernacular caused Latin, (and influence from Rome), to quell over the sixteenth century. The spread of bibles, fearful “picture-sermons”, psalms and religious tracts spread faith in Europe, and in 1519 directly assisted Luther in destroying the “constellation of forces and institutions”[18] that it had initially glorified.
“The invention of printing hastened the exchange of ideas without which the Reformation might have never come about.”[19]
Was 1927 the beginning, or just a point of increased acceleration like almost everything else in the twentieth century?

[1] Crary, Johnathon “Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory “, October, Vol. 50, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989. p 98
[2] ibid, p 98
[3] Baudrillard, Jean La Société de cosommation: ses mythes, ses structures. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. p 60
[4] Crary, p 98
[5] ibid, p 98
[6] ibid, p 100
[7] ibid, p 101
[8] Fairclough, Norman Media Discourse New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1995. p 44
[9] ibid, p 44
[10] ibid, p 44
[11] ibid, p 44
[12] Armstrong, Richard Understanding Realism Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, 2005. p57
[13] Crary, Johnathon “Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory “, October, Vol. 50, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1989. p 106
[14] ibid, p 96
[15] Fiske, John Televion Culture Cornwall, TJ Press, 1987. p 127
[16] ibid, p 128
[17] Barrat, David Media Sociology New York: Tavistock Publications, 1986. p 59
[18] Crary, p 98
[19] Gombrich, E.H. The Story of Art London: Phaidon, 2004. p 285