DO YOU KNOW WE ARE RULED? An Interactive Spectacle in the Market Arcade, Buffalo, NY

By Alexis Oltmer and William Bergmann (2014)

​

“The society whose modernization has reached the stage of the integrated spectacle is characterized by the combined effect of five principal features: incessant technological renewal; integration of state and economy; generalized secrecy; unanswerable lies; an eternal present.”

- Guy Debord

​

“A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic un-freedom prevails in advanced industrial civilization, a token of technical progress. How can individuals satisfy their own needs without hurting themselves, without reproducing, through their aspirations and satisfactions, their dependence upon an exploitation apparatus which in satisfying their needs, perpetuates their servitude?”

- Herbert Marcuse

​

Collectively as Human beings, we inherently hold powers to manifest transformations of old ideals and decrees into new or unorthodox ways of being. Our species has questioned our existence from the dawn of our time. Then why, have we accepted a reality which is built upon complacency in mass-produced images and objects as well as ossified through paths? Seemingly lacking the will to question, Humankind has fallen into a desolate and materialistic time period, where manufactured products have become our masters as they come to dominate our “identities.”

Awareness towards the ordinary, the overlooked, and of communication is a step backwards from materialistic desolation. Having the ability to actively make a choice, erects us as Human. Making the decision to become passive and indifferent is what condemns us to mass thoughtlessness and blind consumption.

With this stated, nullify the realities of devout acceptance, and awaken a propulsion from within which puts in question the socially established normal.

​

Do you know we are ruled? was exhibited at The CEPA Gallery on May 10th - June 10th 2014