Abstract
As Benjamin had foreseen, image technologies produced an epochal change well summarized by the notion of «aestheticization of politics». One of the most relevant effects of the aestheticization of politics is the transformation of the citizen, who becomes a spectator and no longer an actor of political action. Adorno, Horkheimer and Debord have highlighted the danger implied by this transformation, arguing that the omnipotence of the cultural industry and the omnipresence of spectacle produce new forms of authoritarianism. Although it still contains elements of truth, this criticism has limits: on the one hand it risks being unilateral from a theoretical point of view, on the other hand it risks being inconclusive from a political point of view. In this essay the problem of the spectator is analyzed from an aesthetic-political perspective, assuming the criticism of the ideological character of the cultural industry, but, at the same time, trying to avoid the trap of an «apocalyptic» conception of image technologies.