Dream, the invisible world of ‘being’
A collective society that seeks pleasure and entertainment as the result
of its dominant act (consumption), circulates in spaces to create the
image and fulfill the dream. The term spectacle proposes definitions to
the relationships that are based on image.
As Debord (1992) argues, as long as the realm of necessity remains a
social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. Hence the
contemporary society necessitates dreaming for sustaining in the present
time. There is a tight relationship between image, dream and everyday
life in this era. In a society in which spectacle is the chief product,
transformation of the image of the city is a matter of the work of a
network of social spaces through which everyday life flows. Therefore
transformation of such image inevitably happens as the spectacle
reproduces itself constantly. The spectacle, understood in its totality,
is not an addition to the real world or an additional decoration to it.
It is the core of the unrealism of the real society. In all its explicit
forms, as information or propaganda, advertisement or straight
consumption of entertainments, the spectacle is the existing model of
socially dominant life (Debord, 1992).
Direct consumption of entertainment raises as spectacle thrives in
spaces such as shopping malls. Mall is a space within which existing
model of socially dominant lifestyle is present by constant act of
consumption. Dovey in his book ‘framing places’ claims that, as Walter
Benjamin viewed, urban experience offered an aesthetic territory, which
resisted the lack of the ‘aura’ that exemplifies twentieth century art.
Contrasting the fine arts, the urban spectacle is experienced in
distraction that gives it an extra potential to trigger dreams and
memories (Dovey, 1999).
While polarizing the city; mall offers a site of ‘artificial pleasure
without danger’ in an urban background that increasingly offers ‘the
danger without the pleasure’5. Hence, mall turns into
a space for constant pleasure seeking, creating the imaginary dream
world that represents spectacle in form of consumption of products and
consumption of images.