A group of Leeds University students have shaped an art exhibition that addresses gender issues surrounding, ‘the archive’. By considering the traditionally perceived polarities of masculinity and femininity, they discover whether it is possible to ‘sex’ the archive and the process of building a collection. This is questioned in terms of archives being active or passive, creative or procreative, or a combination of all. The exhibition will include the work of existing artists who implement the aesthetic and concept of the archive in their practice.
Renowned Swiss artist Pascal Rousson expands the boundaries of art as he works to engage with an increasingly pluralistic environment. He will be displaying his mixed media work “Museum of the Dispossessed”, which contains collected ephemera, objects and reworked paintings that appropriate D.I.Y. magazine covers. The installation is reminiscent of adolescent bedrooms, and comical narratives portrayed in the paintings associate the work of ‘great’ artists with the commercial aesthetics of magazines found in the home. The work also contributes to the ever-blurring boundaries of artist and curator, and questions who has ultimate creative control. No longer is it purely the job of the genius artist to leave behind precious relics for the curator to archive and keep safe. Now, the two combine, in order to fecundate artworks with narratives and meaning.
Other artists to be exhibited include Anne Mansfield and Hamman Aldorui. Mansfield is currently a fine art student at the University of Leeds, making work revolving around the concept of appropriation, by deconstructing/ recreating found books, diaries, and other objects containing archival information. Anne’s practice takes something with a specific function, time and history, and creates a dialogue or narrative between the artist and the material she works with. The sound works of former Leeds University student, Hamman Aldouri will consist of an evocative installation of audiotapes, paralleling with the notion of the body as an archive. The artist emphasises the fragility of collecting and how it can somehow evoke the death of the archive, as he has encompassed a fully comprehensive array of information on a physical entity that is bound to eventually vanish. This contrasts with the open-ended format of the ‘traditional’ archive, which leaves room for constant transformation.
Contributing to the exploration of gendering the archive, the students will be putting together a series of documentaries, which question the motives behind the building of domestic archives. Interviewees will discuss personal bedroom wall displays, and the choices that have been made as to what is put on show versus that which is. To what extent is the undercover archive a protected collection of personal keepsakes, and the displayed archive a constructed narrative of the self?
Wednesday 6 May 2009
Monday 9 February 2009
"Balkan Heartbreak: a hit in Berlin"
Claire Brentnall
“Unlike the ‘destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery from broken relationships, the Museum offers every individual the chance to overcome the emotional collapse through creation, i.e, by contributing to the Museum’s collection. The individual gets rid of ‘controversial objects’, triggers of momentarily ‘undesirable’ emotions, by turning them into museum exhibits and thereby participating in the creation of a preserved collective emotional history.” http://www.brokenships.com/skladiste/more_about_concept.pdf
The travelling exhibition “The Museum of Broken Relationships” visited Berlin in October 2007, and according to the BBC News website, was “a hit”. Originating in Croatia, the show encourages people from the cities it visits to donate objects that may hold memories of terminated relationships, along with a narrative that the item evokes for the person. It is a concept which proceeds from the assumption that “objects possess integrated fields”; that an object is rarely simply just that.
Karl Marx states, "A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing." After analysing the object though, it becomes "a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." Indeed, it seems that we as human beings cannot escape this cathexis of certain possessions, and The Museum of Broken Relationships explores this notion. This is reminiscent of Fluxus that emerged during the 1960s, as the experimental group subverted the traditional art object by finding beauty in everyday items such as stamps, tablecloths and posters. So, what must occur for an object to gain metaphysical meaning in everyday life?
When an inanimate object enters into our lives to coincide with an episode to which we have assigned great importance (i.e. a love relationship), it begins to exist not only as a physical thing, but gains presence as a psychical and symbolic entity. Therefore, it is clear for the viewer to see why some objects have been contributed to the Berlin exhibition: a wedding dress after one woman’s painful divorce becomes a poignant reminder of happy times turned sour: a girl’s teddy bear given by an ex boyfriend represents the naivety of young love. However, some objects such as a prosthetic leg, a garden gnome and a pair of underpants appear more ambiguous. The exhibition’s organiser Zvonimir Dobrovic told the BBC, "People really enjoy being here, we get couples who spend a long time here, looking and laughing and hoping it never happens to them, and then people who've just broken up who want to tell us their stories". So it would seem that the exhibition could be enjoyed on many levels, with the needs of the audience being catered for whether these are to be entertained with tails of unwanted gifts of ridiculous underpants, or to bond with others in some sort of support group environment. Considering though the contributors to the Museum, why did these people feel the need to air their dirty laundry?
Dobrovic explains, "It's such a nice, simple idea, because everyone can relate to it". This underlines the motives of the Museum’s originators, as the concept was born when the artists Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic split up and decided to do something creative with the pain they were feeling. They claim, "The exhibition comes from a sincere, universal experience and helped us in our break-up process”. It is true that all of us at some point will probably go through the termination of a relationship, whether it is perceived as a positive or negative experience. Therefore, judging by the success of the exhibition and many of the responses posted on the BBC website, it would seem that the opportunity to join a community that promotes talking about failed love relationships, can produce an extremely cathartic effect. Perhaps this offloading of pressure was what the contributors to the Museum were gasping for.
In many ways, the Museum of Broken Relationships can be viewed as a commendable experiment, as its originators are on a mission to eradicate the “’destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery”, promoted by modern day media: these being guides for “how to get rid of the emotional burden the fastest and most efficient way”. Indeed the exhibition considers the fact that broken relationships do not seem to have a place in modern society: the slow, but necessary process of recovery would much preferably be replaced by many with the deletion of memories of a relationship, as in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As this is not reality however, the attitude of Samantha Jones in Sex and the City is often sustained, in which there is no room for pining or remorse. Instead, the old is destroyed to make way for the new. So maybe for some people, to be offered the opportunity to admit that these methods do not work, without the risk of being labelled prudish, old fashioned or, God forbid, the next Bridget Jones, is a relief.
The Museum is divided into several sections, these being for material objects with a narrative, a section for letters, a virtual Museum with images of exhibits, and also a virtual space in which anyone can become a “donor”. In each of these spaces, the donor is allowed the opportunity to overcome emotional collapse by getting rid of objects that trigger “undesirable” emotions. This is, the Museum claims, to be done via the “creation of a preserved collective emotional history”. However, does this method really work?
By embracing the concept that relics of relationships can be metaphysical portals that are damaging to the owner, the Museum is encouraging a confrontation of both conscious and repressed feelings. As I see it, this process could have several possible outcomes. In some cases, the object could be handed over to the Museum and presented as it is: a cathected object. The donor can, as a result, be successfully freed from the clutches of the item that may have haunted their shelf, cupboard or underwear drawer for so many years, and allow happy memories from a terminated relationship to emerge in it’s place. Conversely though, perhaps when the offending item is put on display in an exhibition it gets transformed in the mind of the donor into something else and becomes no longer a symbol of an individual’s experiences. It is now solely an art object, an artefact in a museum gathering dust. Effectively in this case, the object in it’s original context will no longer exist, so instead of dealing with the intense feeling attached to it, the “quick fix” method has been implicated and the thing destroyed. Or maybe, and I feel that this is the most damaging scenario; the donor takes the teddy bear off the shelf, the wedding dress out of the cupboard and literally, but also psychically, puts it on a pedestal. This overlaying of ideas onto the initial cathexis could cause the symbolic significance of the object to grow and gain omnipotence, resulting in an emotional relapse.
However, these are just theories. Whatever the psychical and emotional results of such an experiment may be, the Museum of Broken Relationships effectively displays a feeling that seems to be shared by many. This is the need to find new ways of coping with the emotional turmoil caused by love relationships, and the baggage that comes with them.
“Unlike the ‘destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery from broken relationships, the Museum offers every individual the chance to overcome the emotional collapse through creation, i.e, by contributing to the Museum’s collection. The individual gets rid of ‘controversial objects’, triggers of momentarily ‘undesirable’ emotions, by turning them into museum exhibits and thereby participating in the creation of a preserved collective emotional history.” http://www.brokenships.com/skladiste/more_about_concept.pdf
The travelling exhibition “The Museum of Broken Relationships” visited Berlin in October 2007, and according to the BBC News website, was “a hit”. Originating in Croatia, the show encourages people from the cities it visits to donate objects that may hold memories of terminated relationships, along with a narrative that the item evokes for the person. It is a concept which proceeds from the assumption that “objects possess integrated fields”; that an object is rarely simply just that.
Karl Marx states, "A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing." After analysing the object though, it becomes "a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." Indeed, it seems that we as human beings cannot escape this cathexis of certain possessions, and The Museum of Broken Relationships explores this notion. This is reminiscent of Fluxus that emerged during the 1960s, as the experimental group subverted the traditional art object by finding beauty in everyday items such as stamps, tablecloths and posters. So, what must occur for an object to gain metaphysical meaning in everyday life?
When an inanimate object enters into our lives to coincide with an episode to which we have assigned great importance (i.e. a love relationship), it begins to exist not only as a physical thing, but gains presence as a psychical and symbolic entity. Therefore, it is clear for the viewer to see why some objects have been contributed to the Berlin exhibition: a wedding dress after one woman’s painful divorce becomes a poignant reminder of happy times turned sour: a girl’s teddy bear given by an ex boyfriend represents the naivety of young love. However, some objects such as a prosthetic leg, a garden gnome and a pair of underpants appear more ambiguous. The exhibition’s organiser Zvonimir Dobrovic told the BBC, "People really enjoy being here, we get couples who spend a long time here, looking and laughing and hoping it never happens to them, and then people who've just broken up who want to tell us their stories". So it would seem that the exhibition could be enjoyed on many levels, with the needs of the audience being catered for whether these are to be entertained with tails of unwanted gifts of ridiculous underpants, or to bond with others in some sort of support group environment. Considering though the contributors to the Museum, why did these people feel the need to air their dirty laundry?
Dobrovic explains, "It's such a nice, simple idea, because everyone can relate to it". This underlines the motives of the Museum’s originators, as the concept was born when the artists Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic split up and decided to do something creative with the pain they were feeling. They claim, "The exhibition comes from a sincere, universal experience and helped us in our break-up process”. It is true that all of us at some point will probably go through the termination of a relationship, whether it is perceived as a positive or negative experience. Therefore, judging by the success of the exhibition and many of the responses posted on the BBC website, it would seem that the opportunity to join a community that promotes talking about failed love relationships, can produce an extremely cathartic effect. Perhaps this offloading of pressure was what the contributors to the Museum were gasping for.
In many ways, the Museum of Broken Relationships can be viewed as a commendable experiment, as its originators are on a mission to eradicate the “’destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery”, promoted by modern day media: these being guides for “how to get rid of the emotional burden the fastest and most efficient way”. Indeed the exhibition considers the fact that broken relationships do not seem to have a place in modern society: the slow, but necessary process of recovery would much preferably be replaced by many with the deletion of memories of a relationship, as in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As this is not reality however, the attitude of Samantha Jones in Sex and the City is often sustained, in which there is no room for pining or remorse. Instead, the old is destroyed to make way for the new. So maybe for some people, to be offered the opportunity to admit that these methods do not work, without the risk of being labelled prudish, old fashioned or, God forbid, the next Bridget Jones, is a relief.
The Museum is divided into several sections, these being for material objects with a narrative, a section for letters, a virtual Museum with images of exhibits, and also a virtual space in which anyone can become a “donor”. In each of these spaces, the donor is allowed the opportunity to overcome emotional collapse by getting rid of objects that trigger “undesirable” emotions. This is, the Museum claims, to be done via the “creation of a preserved collective emotional history”. However, does this method really work?
By embracing the concept that relics of relationships can be metaphysical portals that are damaging to the owner, the Museum is encouraging a confrontation of both conscious and repressed feelings. As I see it, this process could have several possible outcomes. In some cases, the object could be handed over to the Museum and presented as it is: a cathected object. The donor can, as a result, be successfully freed from the clutches of the item that may have haunted their shelf, cupboard or underwear drawer for so many years, and allow happy memories from a terminated relationship to emerge in it’s place. Conversely though, perhaps when the offending item is put on display in an exhibition it gets transformed in the mind of the donor into something else and becomes no longer a symbol of an individual’s experiences. It is now solely an art object, an artefact in a museum gathering dust. Effectively in this case, the object in it’s original context will no longer exist, so instead of dealing with the intense feeling attached to it, the “quick fix” method has been implicated and the thing destroyed. Or maybe, and I feel that this is the most damaging scenario; the donor takes the teddy bear off the shelf, the wedding dress out of the cupboard and literally, but also psychically, puts it on a pedestal. This overlaying of ideas onto the initial cathexis could cause the symbolic significance of the object to grow and gain omnipotence, resulting in an emotional relapse.
However, these are just theories. Whatever the psychical and emotional results of such an experiment may be, the Museum of Broken Relationships effectively displays a feeling that seems to be shared by many. This is the need to find new ways of coping with the emotional turmoil caused by love relationships, and the baggage that comes with them.
Tuesday 3 February 2009
Critique of Guy Debord’s "Theory of the Dérive"
Claire Brentnall
Declaration of the desire for revolution put forward by an avant-garde group of artists, is nothing new. The anti-art, anti-bourgeois sentiments of the 1960s group the Situationist International are reminiscent of Dada, and their post-modern attitudes coupled with a strong spirit of revolt resemble Surrealist endeavours. Though, the Situationists seemed to be aware that their group was the love child of what has come before. Members perceived the nihilistic anarchism of Dada as a necessary and inescapable attitude to be advocated by future avant-garde groups where capitalist social structures have not yet been eradicated, or traditional hierarchies dismantled. However, where these previous groups have failed, the Situationists were intent on succeeding in their liberation of society, via the discovery and strict application of new and improved actions. One such action and common practice was the “dérive”, first theorised by Guy Debord. This concept was something new to me, so I was keen to obtain a better understanding of how the Situationists set about achieving their revolution. I read Debord’s Theory of the Dérive in the hope of grasping what constitutes this practice.
Debord begins by explaining what the “technique” of the dérive involves, and this is the “rapid passage through varied ambiences”. My first problem arose at this point. The term “dérive” literally means “drifting”, which, to me, conjures images of slow, aimless wandering or floating without purpose: a seemingly contradictory concept to the rapid, purposefully constructive nature of this practice? However, Debord sets about proving how different a dérive is from the traditional journey or stroll with regards to his invented practice of “psychogeography”, which is the study of the urban geographical environment in relation to the effects it has on human existence. He enforces the notion that “Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think”, as it is the city that ultimately dictates the passage of the dériver with its restricted zones; it may be discouraged, or made impossible for certain routes to be explored therefore causing the journey of the dériver to be predetermined to a certain extent. So, in this sense, Debord is portraying the dérive as being a consciously structured, calculated process.
The sentence immediately prior to his denial of the significance of chance however, is something of a contradiction. Debord writes how the person or group must “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”, which displays an unconscious, uncontrolled element that is fundamental to practicing the dérive. Here Debord seems to be encouraging the inexplicable attraction of the undiscovered, adding a sense of mystery to “this great game” of exploration and detection. Later on in the article though, he adamantly debunks any form of exoticism as being uninteresting for the dériver, as they are not to be concerned with this kind of subjective nonsense, (what do you think this is, some kind of game?!) No, the explorer needs to concentrate on more important aspects, such as the improvement and correction of maps, and calculating directions of penetration.
It is possible to suggest that Debord himself does not appear to have a firm idea of what he wishes the dérive to be. He strives to enforce how chance is a minor issue in order to prove this practice to be different from the randomness of a stroll, but ends up contradicting himself on a number of occasions. For instance, he condemns chance as being “conservative”, as it reduces everything to habit, so in order for the actions of the Situationists to evolve they must escape this by creating “new conditions more favourable to our purpose”. However, he cancels out this criticism by expressing how dérivers may fixate on and get drawn back to “habitual axes”. I find it somewhat bizarre that he chooses to use the word “habitual” after associating habit with the very thing he is trying to escape from. Debord does however, explain why chance may now and then play a more central role than he would like, and this is due to the methodology of psychogeographical observation still being in its infancy. In other words, he’s not sure whether it actually works yet.
Other aspects of the dérive are also presented in this vague, conflicting manner. Debord writes how the duration of a dérive should be on average one day, but may take place within a limited period, or may last for several days, and in one case lasted two months. So basically anything goes! Therefore, is the dérive something consciously calculated, based on a preconceived knowledge of the environment that is to be explored, and performed within a predetermined amount of time? Or is it a random series of encounters and movements based on what attracts the attention of the dériver?
Reading through the article again however, I realized that this is crucially explained. Debord assures the reader that there is this “necessary contradiction” (my italics) of the structured and the free characteristics of the dérive. So, this is where I’ve been going wrong. This practice is not one thing or the other: it can be both. It is necessary to replace either/or with and.
When writing of how the spatial field of a dérive can be either delimited or vague, depending on the goal of the dériver, he is underscoring this necessary contradiction. If the goal is to study a specific terrain, then the dériver may choose a limited area. If the aim is to “emotionally disorient oneself”, then the explored field may be intentionally undefined. He states though, that these two aspects can overlap, making it difficult to isolate the dérive in a “pure state”, (although he fails to fully explain what a “pure state” may be). Nonetheless, this is a positive representation of the possibility of the dérive being a calculated and random process at the same time, with this balance shifting in relation to the intentions of the dériver. However, I feel I can be forgiven for feeling the need to pinpoint what the dérive is or is not. This is because Debord himself does not always seem to promote the ambiguous nature of this activity, as he shows some bias in the article by setting up a number of polarities.
For instance, he leans towards portraying the dérive and his creation of psychogeography as almost scientific experiments. Perhaps it was his desire to show how the Situationists are revolutionary in the way that they have devised new modes of action and discovery, free from any bourgeois, self indulgent, expressive forms of Art. He strives to separate the Situationists from the tired, old Surrealists in regards to this notion, as those “imbeciles” were insufficiently aware of the limitations of chance. To do this Debord criticizes the activity of four Surrealists who in 1923, wandered aimlessly from a randomly chosen town through open country, which resulted in “dismal failure”. This pathetically bourgeois activity is, Debord claims, the polar opposite to what the Situationists are doing, and he seems to have used this example to compare “failed” experiments of the past with the successful activities of the present (despite admitting that his creation of psychogeography is not actually utilizable yet). He has set up polarities by scoffing at the Surrealists in order to portray old ways of thinking versus new, natural surroundings versus urban environment, depressing versus playful and random and meaningless versus calculated and meaningful. But, have the activities of the Situationists really reached the opposite end of the spectrum? Does the “aimless wandering” of the Surrealists not conjure images of “drifting”? Debord later in the article even describes the loose lifestyles of the Situationists and their playful activities which cannot fail to remind the reader of this Surrealist experiment: one such activity being “hitchhiking nonstop and without destination”.
So, the article appears to be full of inconsistencies that may leave the reader questioning the actions of the Situationists. However, their aims seem to be clear. With Debord’s account of the Parisian student whose geographical movements when mapped out were depressingly limited, the anti-confinement attitude of the group becomes apparent. Their desire was to suppress the invisible borders that segregated regions so that they would eventually be diminished. Perhaps this stemmed from a postmodern desire for the individual to break free from the confinements of the space designated to them by modernist architecture, in order to unify the urban environment. This, they claimed, needed to be done via a new awareness of physical construction and psychical ambiance. However, the strict intentions of the Situationists are somewhat incongruent with what they actually achieved. The group has been criticized of imagining that it was contributing to a revolutionary liberation of society via the application of new techniques and actions, when in reality it was just creating ambiguity and confusion.
Declaration of the desire for revolution put forward by an avant-garde group of artists, is nothing new. The anti-art, anti-bourgeois sentiments of the 1960s group the Situationist International are reminiscent of Dada, and their post-modern attitudes coupled with a strong spirit of revolt resemble Surrealist endeavours. Though, the Situationists seemed to be aware that their group was the love child of what has come before. Members perceived the nihilistic anarchism of Dada as a necessary and inescapable attitude to be advocated by future avant-garde groups where capitalist social structures have not yet been eradicated, or traditional hierarchies dismantled. However, where these previous groups have failed, the Situationists were intent on succeeding in their liberation of society, via the discovery and strict application of new and improved actions. One such action and common practice was the “dérive”, first theorised by Guy Debord. This concept was something new to me, so I was keen to obtain a better understanding of how the Situationists set about achieving their revolution. I read Debord’s Theory of the Dérive in the hope of grasping what constitutes this practice.
Debord begins by explaining what the “technique” of the dérive involves, and this is the “rapid passage through varied ambiences”. My first problem arose at this point. The term “dérive” literally means “drifting”, which, to me, conjures images of slow, aimless wandering or floating without purpose: a seemingly contradictory concept to the rapid, purposefully constructive nature of this practice? However, Debord sets about proving how different a dérive is from the traditional journey or stroll with regards to his invented practice of “psychogeography”, which is the study of the urban geographical environment in relation to the effects it has on human existence. He enforces the notion that “Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think”, as it is the city that ultimately dictates the passage of the dériver with its restricted zones; it may be discouraged, or made impossible for certain routes to be explored therefore causing the journey of the dériver to be predetermined to a certain extent. So, in this sense, Debord is portraying the dérive as being a consciously structured, calculated process.
The sentence immediately prior to his denial of the significance of chance however, is something of a contradiction. Debord writes how the person or group must “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”, which displays an unconscious, uncontrolled element that is fundamental to practicing the dérive. Here Debord seems to be encouraging the inexplicable attraction of the undiscovered, adding a sense of mystery to “this great game” of exploration and detection. Later on in the article though, he adamantly debunks any form of exoticism as being uninteresting for the dériver, as they are not to be concerned with this kind of subjective nonsense, (what do you think this is, some kind of game?!) No, the explorer needs to concentrate on more important aspects, such as the improvement and correction of maps, and calculating directions of penetration.
It is possible to suggest that Debord himself does not appear to have a firm idea of what he wishes the dérive to be. He strives to enforce how chance is a minor issue in order to prove this practice to be different from the randomness of a stroll, but ends up contradicting himself on a number of occasions. For instance, he condemns chance as being “conservative”, as it reduces everything to habit, so in order for the actions of the Situationists to evolve they must escape this by creating “new conditions more favourable to our purpose”. However, he cancels out this criticism by expressing how dérivers may fixate on and get drawn back to “habitual axes”. I find it somewhat bizarre that he chooses to use the word “habitual” after associating habit with the very thing he is trying to escape from. Debord does however, explain why chance may now and then play a more central role than he would like, and this is due to the methodology of psychogeographical observation still being in its infancy. In other words, he’s not sure whether it actually works yet.
Other aspects of the dérive are also presented in this vague, conflicting manner. Debord writes how the duration of a dérive should be on average one day, but may take place within a limited period, or may last for several days, and in one case lasted two months. So basically anything goes! Therefore, is the dérive something consciously calculated, based on a preconceived knowledge of the environment that is to be explored, and performed within a predetermined amount of time? Or is it a random series of encounters and movements based on what attracts the attention of the dériver?
Reading through the article again however, I realized that this is crucially explained. Debord assures the reader that there is this “necessary contradiction” (my italics) of the structured and the free characteristics of the dérive. So, this is where I’ve been going wrong. This practice is not one thing or the other: it can be both. It is necessary to replace either/or with and.
When writing of how the spatial field of a dérive can be either delimited or vague, depending on the goal of the dériver, he is underscoring this necessary contradiction. If the goal is to study a specific terrain, then the dériver may choose a limited area. If the aim is to “emotionally disorient oneself”, then the explored field may be intentionally undefined. He states though, that these two aspects can overlap, making it difficult to isolate the dérive in a “pure state”, (although he fails to fully explain what a “pure state” may be). Nonetheless, this is a positive representation of the possibility of the dérive being a calculated and random process at the same time, with this balance shifting in relation to the intentions of the dériver. However, I feel I can be forgiven for feeling the need to pinpoint what the dérive is or is not. This is because Debord himself does not always seem to promote the ambiguous nature of this activity, as he shows some bias in the article by setting up a number of polarities.
For instance, he leans towards portraying the dérive and his creation of psychogeography as almost scientific experiments. Perhaps it was his desire to show how the Situationists are revolutionary in the way that they have devised new modes of action and discovery, free from any bourgeois, self indulgent, expressive forms of Art. He strives to separate the Situationists from the tired, old Surrealists in regards to this notion, as those “imbeciles” were insufficiently aware of the limitations of chance. To do this Debord criticizes the activity of four Surrealists who in 1923, wandered aimlessly from a randomly chosen town through open country, which resulted in “dismal failure”. This pathetically bourgeois activity is, Debord claims, the polar opposite to what the Situationists are doing, and he seems to have used this example to compare “failed” experiments of the past with the successful activities of the present (despite admitting that his creation of psychogeography is not actually utilizable yet). He has set up polarities by scoffing at the Surrealists in order to portray old ways of thinking versus new, natural surroundings versus urban environment, depressing versus playful and random and meaningless versus calculated and meaningful. But, have the activities of the Situationists really reached the opposite end of the spectrum? Does the “aimless wandering” of the Surrealists not conjure images of “drifting”? Debord later in the article even describes the loose lifestyles of the Situationists and their playful activities which cannot fail to remind the reader of this Surrealist experiment: one such activity being “hitchhiking nonstop and without destination”.
So, the article appears to be full of inconsistencies that may leave the reader questioning the actions of the Situationists. However, their aims seem to be clear. With Debord’s account of the Parisian student whose geographical movements when mapped out were depressingly limited, the anti-confinement attitude of the group becomes apparent. Their desire was to suppress the invisible borders that segregated regions so that they would eventually be diminished. Perhaps this stemmed from a postmodern desire for the individual to break free from the confinements of the space designated to them by modernist architecture, in order to unify the urban environment. This, they claimed, needed to be done via a new awareness of physical construction and psychical ambiance. However, the strict intentions of the Situationists are somewhat incongruent with what they actually achieved. The group has been criticized of imagining that it was contributing to a revolutionary liberation of society via the application of new techniques and actions, when in reality it was just creating ambiguity and confusion.
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