Images of Power

Abstract

Arguing for the continued relevance of the spectacle as a powerful conceptual tool for analyzing structures of power and revealing how they co-opt the material landscape to build, consolidate, and reproduce their hegemony, this article uses the theory of the spectacle as a lens to interpret the proliferation of architectural mega-projects in the contemporary landscape. Using the case of Olympic Beijing, the author revisits the notion of the spectacle as a technique of governance, and demonstrates the way in which, in the context of post-socialist China, the state and the market coexist in the form of the spectacle as a way of regulating society. By examining some of the issues at stake in the current spectacularization of the built environment, the article suggests that the spectacle, especially in the context of global mega-events, can also have a productive side and exert pressure upon the producers of the spectacle to open up to the public and allow room for diverse forms of resistance, contestation and change.