Organisers of the Paris Olympics this week apologised for offence caused by one particular scene during the opening ceremony.
It was a scene that recalled depictions of the Last Supper – a holy moment of the Christian faith that remembers the final Passover meal of Jesus and the Apostles before the crucifixion.
In the scene actors are seated at a table in the same arrangement as the well-known painting by Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper.
The actors portrayed drag queens, models with quirky and cross-dressing outfits, sexually suggestive choreography, a man painted blue and appearing almost naked, and the DJ with a golden crown at the centre of the table.
The scene, its arrangement and the caricatures the actors portrayed were condemned by Christians worldwide, but also much more broadly, including several Muslim councils.
Presidents and high-profile individuals with followers around the world joined worldwide protests, posting on social media to express their disappointment.
The apology offered by the organisers and the explanations by a theatre director that no offence was intended, and the scene did not draw on imagery of the Last Supper – the scene was meant to resemble a pagan feast of the Gods at Olympus – did little to soften the global outcry.
The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings. #Paris2024 #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/FBlQNNUmvV
These were, however, not the only offending images. Several other images and productions in the opening parade were taken as macabre and absurd, which reinforced protests.
The result is that the opening ceremony and the days that followed created a global spectacle of particular kind, a spectacle of optics. “Optics” in political, cultural and social contexts refers to what something looks like and what sense different audiences and readers make of them.
It refers to any kind of image that accompanies a particular event, during and after the event. In this case it includes the live broadcast images, the pictures of the scene that floods the news and social media, and then the pictures of the Last Supper with which people comment on and interpret the scene as a mockery of faith.
What follows is a set of narratives that people construct about the intentions of the programme directors, the spirit and moral codes of the sporting event as a whole and the underlying values of a nation, and even what the future of Europe may hold. When images are broadcast, published and circulated they therefore create a social and political “ecology of optics”.
This refers to the integrated and complex interplay between the images, meanings associated with them and the narratives that audiences and readers create, and to which they respond.
It, however, also refers to the compounding effect of similar images and the multitude of different images people then draw into their narrative to confirm their interpretation of the original optics.
As images represent particular meanings – particular knowns – but also establish new meanings, optics reflect and create new knowledge.
A dramatic clash of diverse views inevitably follows, which can only be resolved in dialogue between authors and readers. Images and optic ecologies, however, can be manipulated to establish “hidden spectres” – groups of images and narratives that over time entrench underlying views of self, others, the world and of significant events that direct how people behave.
This is a ghost of hidden and disruptive knowledge that can only be exorcised by an unending dialogue on optics.
* Rudi Buys, NetEd Group Chief Academic Officer and Executive Dean, DaVinci Business Institute.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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