detournement part 1: chaos of the “situation”

A beginning of a three part series on as aspect of design history that’s completely ignored.It was the beginning of the end as we know it…

Art Chantry (art@artchantry.com):

part 1: Detournement (the beginning of the end)

The French practice philosophy like a sport. Their intellectually ferocious takes on how to view reality and live a good life have managed to cripple many generations of world thought with their convoluted searching. The two world wars fought in Europe (most devastatingly in france) left several entire generations decimated (killed) and the survivors in a quandary over what to think about existence: ‘wha’ happen?’, ‘were next?’, ‘what the hell to do we do now?’ “what the fuck wazzat?”

So, it stands to reason that a number of the young intellectuals in the post WW2 era France would think it over and come up with some remarkably sordid and glum new twists on the idea of our shared reality. One such thinker was a fella name of Guy Debord. He drew off of a long history of anarchistic thinking that drew off eons of European history (particularly a small group called ‘the letterists’ as well as the ‘dadaists’.) Debord’s ideas were formally articulated as a philosophy called “Situationism”.

In a tiny nutshell, the base idea behind situationism (simply put) was that human society and assumed reality was predicated on the ‘shared culture’ inherited through many generations of tradition. Basically, the reason we ended up in those devastating wars was because the CULTURE itself was corrupt and pointless. In order to reach the desired nirvana, one had to somehow DIVORCE themselves from that shared culture. Only then could we see existence clearly and live accordingly.

Just how does one remove culture from our shared existance? Well, you do your best to destroy it. Such an act was known in their circles as ‘detournement’. Simply put, you did your best to tear culture down in any way you could. Reduce it to a rubble and then whatever emerged was truth. Simple.

Debord went about this in many ways. He wrote manifestos – so fucked up due to the rejection of any rules of organization that they were virtually unintelligible. His writings were intentional chaos ‘designed’ to confuse and alienate and force the reader to withdraw and reject. Keep in mind, he was a still a French i

lectual, a man of letters. He was educated and and refined. But he preached total chaos.

One great example of his attempts at detournement was a film (remember he’s french.) This film was publicly screened only once. It caused a riot. the ‘movie’ was 1/2 hour long. The first 15 minutes was completely blank white clear film. The screen was utterly white light and blank (except the occasional pieces of dirt). At precisely the 15 minute mark, the screen turned completely black – the film strip switched to solid black for the next 15 minutes (not that anybody made it all the way through.) ouch.

The audience of sophisticated art snobs and refined culture mavens completely lost it. They threw their chairs at the screen and started destroying everything around them in disgust and anger. Debord was personally attacked. The police had to arrive and quell the disturbance. (remember these are the french.)

This total in-your-face reject of a film caused an angry chaotic reaction from the audience. Simply put, it created a “situation.” This situation was a total breakdown of societal norms and a ‘natural’ reply of violence to grab for order and freedom. The ‘shared culture’ literally flew out the window. The audience was “free.” The use of ‘the specatcle’ as a major tool to create a “situation’ was part of the ingrained actions conjured up by the philosophy of Debord’s situationism

That gives you an (admittedly rough) idea what the original situationist master philosopher was about. His followers, those who really ‘got’ what he was doing, followed suit and swarmed to his side becoming a sort of mad ‘gang’ of situationists. Roving alone or in packs around paris, getting completely wasted (an induced state of ‘non-culture’) and smashing cultural objects while shouting doctrine and intentionally confusing provocative slogans.

Pieces of art were made that were crazy stupid ‘anti-art’ (drawing from dadaist traditions) to provoke outrage. One artist created a book that had sandpaper covers. The idea that the book, when placed on a library shelf among other books, would destroy the books next to it as it is removed and replaced on the shelf – thus destroying ‘culture’. (the image above is re-creation of such a book used as the program cover for a situationist retrospective at the ICA gallery in london in the late 70’s.)

Granted, these situations were largely symbolic and isolated little events and objects. The original situationists really had no idea how to bring their thinking to larger stage.

Ultimately, one situationist activist attempted to kill the pope – that great doorman of European culture. It failed and he went to prison forever. But, he was the ultimate situationist hero (and utterly mad, to boot.) Most of the other situationists quickly devolved into street alcoholics and died young, staggering around the streets of 1950’s Paris until they died their pathetic “culture-free” deaths.

Guy Debord, on the other hand, lived a long life of ease, becoming a grand wazoo of philosophical intellectuals and became the guru of cultural destruction and erasure, sitting in his easy chair, drinking his expensive wine while the rabble battled out his ideas on the street. It’s good to be a French philosopher, I guess.

His ideas fell from grace quickly and it all became remarkably obscure. That is, until a group of university students in Paris in the mid sixties became enamored of his radical ideas and began to incorporate them into their counter culture politics. These students began campaigns of anti-establishment street politics that appeared to us Americans as echoes of our own riots of the same period. But it wasn’t the same at all.

Where our American student riots were fueled with anti-war, anti-bigotry, anti-establishment politics, the French students were coming from a somewhat different perspective. The intellectuals of the scene preached ‘anti-culture’, and meant to see the entire fabric of French life torn asunder. They began to bring down the old world and institute, well, whatever happened. At least it would be “free”.

They began by doing acts of ‘detournement’. Like they would place signs in shops windows that would simply say “special today – everything is free!”. The resulting onslaught of common shoppers grabbing everything and running out the door created the perfect situation. It destroyed the established order of doing business and caused total collapse instantaneously. These kids were smart.

One wonderful style of propaganda that emerged was the defacing of billboards and advertising with disruptive new ad slogans (“the death of art spells the murder of artists. the real anti-artist appears.”). Another favorite was the simple task of taking an existing popular comic strip (that staple of modern culture) and replacing the words in the balloons with dialog created to expose the falsity and utter lies of modern reality. This sort of activity and the wonderfully grafittied slogans (“keep warm this winter – make trouble!”, “save petrol – burns cars!”, ‘believe in the ruins’) created the social heartburn that only needed a spark.

It came to an ugly head with the 1968 student riots in Paris. We americans think that these were riots like we had at home – unhappy draft dodgers and scruffy malcontents letting off a little steam. But the French riots were a bit more disturbing – they were situationist riots. The goal was to bring down the entire culture of France. they lasted over a week. Today, we still look at the photographs of burned overturned cars littering the famous fragile streets of Paris with more than a little awe.

This ‘destructo’ philosophical ideal also made it over the channel and popped up in 1960’s london with the “king mob” movement. Riots and bomb throwing exploded in london. ‘king mob’ were quickly arrested and the movement died. But, it wasn’t forgotten.

In the early 1970’s a snotty, brilliant and charming student traveled to Paris to do a study paper on the situationists. He immediately hooked up with an old friend from back in London who had become deeply involved in the situationists as more of a real life activity. The student was gathering ammo, while the ‘artist’ he met up with got actively involved with the actual creation of propaganda and artwork and street actions in the dismal dregs of the situationist movement.

That was how Malcolm Mclaren partnered up with Jamie Reid.