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.