KARL MARX AND GUY DEBORD

I have become increasingly intrigued by Karl Marx's writings on capitalism and his views on the relationship between mass production and mass consumption. A century after Marx's Capital, Guy Debord referenced in his book La Société du Spectacle the alienation resulting from the replacement of social life by representation.

In my piece, I would like to address a new alienation, that of the recording and mapping of identity and relationships. Starting from Marx's idea of the reproduction of commodities and Debord's view on the reproduction of society, I would like to explore the reproduction of indentity. In this new society, where individuals market themselves in search of collective approval, representations mediate interactions between people and between multiple recorded identities of a single self.

Now, the challenge is to translate those concerns and integrate them in a piece that is both demonstrative and engaging.