스펙터클과 중력의 무대: 랑시에르와 영화의 관객성

Spectacle and Gravitational Stage: Rancière and Cinematic Spectatorship

Visibility is made by unequal distribution of sensible shares in artistic regime. Rancière argues that real politics becomes possible only in the aesthetic regime by redistribution and recoordination of the sensible, unlike “polis” maintaining pre-existing orders among visible shares. Even though we accept spectacularization of the invisible as a political action to examine the labor(er) set on stage, we still need to face double-sided criticism: the “artistic” point of view which dismisses normal labor as unworthy of representation; and the standpoint of “truth” which disapproves the spectacularized labor(er) as far from the reality in our daily world. The problems here is clear: the one reproduces the conformists’ logic of polis that laborers on the street should return to their work site; and the other blocks any possibility that laborers can attain sensible shares and therefore, political effectivity. In order to stand against such paralyzing criticisms, this essay suggests that we accept the separation between the visible and the invisible as given so that it can be a loss (of sameness); then, identification of the respective subjects (i.e. the represented and the spectator) will be a starting point to make actions to produce effectivity for both political and artistic goals. On the other hand, such actions discussed in this essay also throw lights on the discourse of spectators’ emancipation. Validity of reformers’ critiques should be questioned because the beholder always means a passive being who must turn into the activist: the “beholder” does not exist any more when s/he always makes the one who should stop seeing and start acting. This problem is not unrelated to the circumstances which do not allow the labor(er) to become visible. Therefore, reexamining laborers as the spectacle on stage purported in this paper aims at double targets: spectacularization of the traditionally invisible should accept disagreements in identification of the staged; representation of the laborer can achieve artistic values, as the art of spectacle does not exclude the gravitational influence after all. Cinematic experiences exemplify this well: this spectacle industry is founded on the forces of working class; and rediscovering the alienated labor on screen easily confirms the continuity between the spectacle(laborer) and the spectator.