from a story on NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/middleeast/israelis-watch-bombs-drop-on-gaza-from-front-row-seats.html?ref=world&_r=4&referrer
Some beautiful looking healthy (and wealthy looking) men and women are
on a hilltop to enjoy some 'beauty' across the distance. Now looking at the
spectator's gaze is also a bliss who is looking at something beautiful or
mind'blowing'. Here I do remember the Hindi song in Yeshu Dash's voice, "Aaj
in nazaron ko tum dekhon, aur mein tumhein dekhte huye dekhun". (Today you
keep looking at the visionary/ scenery, and let me look at you looking).
It is
very common in an auditorium where one of the audiences either secretly or
openly keep an eye at the fellow audience: an observatory on how the other
people are looking at: at whatever they are looking.
Now the people at the hilltop are onlookers, observers, spectators,
eyewitness and bystanders of something spectacular. They resemble the
spectators of sunset at a sea beach. There is no difference at the first look
between these people and the people in front of Tajmahal, or any other tourist
occasions. A look can resemble with a rear window view looking at a cultural
procession or any traditional spectacular act like Jagannath's Rathayatra. But
more than the looks in front of a monument, the looks are similar to the looks
of a time-bound event: including the sunset, a football or a cricket match.
Daumiere's Spectators
Daumiere's Spectators
Now these are spectators of the bombardment at Gaza, they gathered at
the hilltop to eyewitness the events that would remain a life-time achievement
for them. It is on the basis of a story published in NYTimes on 14th July 2014,
"Israelis Watch Bombs Drop on Gaza From Front-Row Seats".
The spectacularity of the Gaza bombarding fulfilled several aspects to
fulfill the consumer-spectator: first, the visual impression that breaks the
horizon across the distance; second, the 'ownership' of a gaze that is 'original'
and 'authentic'; third, the power that the act of looking gives.
Looking at the World's First Under water Atomic Explosion
Looking at the Atomic Explosion
Looking at Atomic Explosion
The spectator seeks for something beyond regular or ordinary and the
bombarding fulfilled that. In my school days I was excited to collect images of
Chernobyle explosion. The experiments of Atomic explosions ever kept the
humanity excited. The war, in fact, were
ever spectacular throughout the history. The overwhelming descriptions of
numerous types of weapons and their disasters in the Mahabharata war, the
Pashupat-ashtra, the Brahmastra or others are examples for that. In the second
point, even more effectively than the visual part, the pleasure of seeing
something with own eyes, and being a witness of some original, claiming the
authenticity of when and where it was/is happening, claims its historical magnitude.
On the same sense of 'originality' or on a similar claim of 'authenticity' the
price of an art work increases. No matter, all are watching it on TV, or may be
later in platforms like youtube and so. But people wanted to climb up the hilltop
only for the claim. And according to the third point, It is a Cartesian take:
It is happening on earth since I see it. I am seeing it because I can see it. I
can see it because I can afford to see it.
Other
than the above mentioned three aspects, one more point is there: the pleasure of
finding and reassembling the resemblances. We see the images from the two world
wars and kept our imaginations and fantasy open. We see the images of the
freedom-struggle today and keep imagining what might be happening in those
days. Now there is a scope given to see something that might occupy pages in
history coming ahead. And thus we can put ourselves into our forthcoming
generations' imaginations.
And beyond the people at the concerned hilltop, there are we,
thousands of us, doing the same on facebook and other mediums. Then we are
trying to translate the sadist pleasure in to 'art' idioms.
Taken from Facebook
Taken from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152593297122369&set=a.437611432368.204374.223871557368&type=1&relevant_count=1
Artist: Amir Schiby, Tribute to Mohammed, Ahed, Zakaria and Mohammed Bakr, the 4 boys killed on the beach in Gaza on 16/07/2014.
Taken from Facebook
Spectacularity has a common language- from art and culture to everyday
life to war-zone. But the meaning might be different.
Now the same question
remains unmovable after Pete Seeger:
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