In a conversation today, i learned a new word/concept that intrigues me, but i still don’t fully grasp…. dtournement. It seems to be somehow related to parody… deconstruction… creative destruction and intertwined with the Situationists and Culture Jamming.
“It was Guy Debord and the Situationists, the muses and theorists of the theatrical student uprising of Paris, May 1968, who first articulated the power of a simple d[acute{e}]tournement, defined as an image, message or artifact lifted out of its context to create a new meaning.”
Something to figure out when i’m breathing again…
it is actually something you are quite familiar with, i have the whole of the situationist archives at cddc now, and the bureau of public secrets si materials too. well worth a look if you have time. also nearly all the main texts of the SI are electronic now, 40 years after the fact, so feel free to download them.
D-tournement comes from the french word d’tournement, meaning: detour:: [drift theory].
The situationists and drif theory are however very physical about their ways. (…)
The closest to an actual drift, one comes to in a digital realm, is the remote possibility to actually click on a pop-up window and follow a singular path outside ones mission.
Or maybe to google all night long, without a pre-designated surf path [mission], would also fit into a drift situation? No.
Do present tools for digital social performance contemplate the possibility of casual [not CG random] drift?
Guy would frown, for in order to enter a drift situation, something must come our way and stop us, delay us, show us a diferent path, set of possibilities… and all that is highly intrusive, unbecoming to privacy policies. :: sigh.
And yes, Guy hated being taken out of context.