Algorithmic Regime of the Spectacle – МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ЖУРНАЛ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ

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Maxim V. SPIVAKOV
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences
12 b.1, Goncharnaya Ulitsa, Moscow, Russia, 109240
PhD Student, Department of Aesthetics
e-mail: textandpictures@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0003-1786-8941

Algorithmic Regime of the Spectacle

Abstract: This article examines the impact of the algorithmic machine learning systems implemented in digital video platforms on the nature of the spectacle and its spectators. The role of the spectator of such a spectacle is shared with a multitude of interdependent machine procedures, co-participants in the process of the spectacle, that are also entitled to be defined as spectators. An integral part of such a spectacle are the processes of extraction, accumulation and analysis of behavioral data that are unseen by the viewer, as well as the continuous personalized algorithmic reassembly of the spectacle with the elements of the replenishing archive. Changes in the regime of the spectacle are discussed in the context of large-scale transformations in the prevailing modes of commercialization, governance and control that have arisen in the course of the development of machine learning systems and algorithmic automatization. The algorithmization of the spectacle is analyzed as a part of the processes of proletarization of consumption through collection and capitalization of data, and the procedures of the "algorithmic governance" that are also premised on data aggregation, analysis, and control. The capitalization of user data in the course of consumption transforms the process of spectacle into a hybrid procedure of consumption and production. As pointed out by Marx, the problem of the position of knowledge within "production resting on machinery" is of key importance to the process of proletarization. This article thus examines this problem in the context of algorithmic automatization. As Antoinette Rouvroy's analysis suggests, the algorithmicization of political governance is expressed in a change in the structure of the relationship of power and knowledge, which is rusults in a "crisis" or "end of critique". This connects to what Bernard Stiegler defines as a fundamental limitation in the abilities to perform symbolic operations in the "automatic society". The critique of algorithmic governance and computational capitalism by Antoinette Rouvroy and Bernard Stigler is compared with Luciana Parisi’s analysis of the foundations of algorithmic machine learning systems. By contrast, according to Parisi, machine learning embodies and transcends the principles of critical thinking, and should be seen not as a reduction of existential qualities and an instrumentalization of reason, but as the emergence of a fundamentally new mode of thought. Such an analysis allows us to outline the horizon of the deproletarization of the spectator under conditions of algorithmic regimes of the spectacle.

Key words: spectacle, spectator, algorithm, machine learning, algorithmic capitalism, data behaviorism, proletarization, deproletarization, Christian Marazzi, Luciana Parisi, Antoinette Rouvroy, Bernard Stigler

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For Citation:

Spivakov, M. (2021). Algorithmic Regime of the Spectacle. International Journal of Cultural Research, 2 (43), 102–114. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2021_2_114

DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2021_2_102