File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1998/avant-garde.9811, message 25


Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 13:44:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Dean Benton <benton-AT-BGNet.bgsu.edu>
To: mbenton723-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: SI theory & scientific language (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 13:39:10 -0500 (EST)
From: A Spectacle <situationist-AT-lists.nothingness.org>
To: A Spectacle <situationist-AT-lists.nothingness.org>
Subject: Re: SI theory & scientific language


OK Nick---I'm going to attempt to give a simplistic description of the two
as defined in the po mo sense---of course this is purely based upon my
understanding of the terms---so i will be interested in hearing other
definitions.

appropriation---is a predatory method of adapting sylistic/formalistic
methods in order to capitalize on the novelty of the radical edge that
they would present.  A mundane example would be in 1950s R n R when white
American (think pat Boone) singers stole black musician songs and used
them without accrediting any due and usually diluting the original form in
order to make it more mainstream.  One could also think of Paul Simon's
Graceland album in this manner---an acquaintance of mine recently was
writing a
paper on how contemporary artists were appropriating african music in
order to appeal to audience desires for novelty---he requested from Paul
Simon the permission to use some of the lyrics from his album and paul
Simon refused (perhaps from his realization thathe might be exposed as a
thief)---the writer of course just went back to the original African
sources to prove his point.   We can see appropriation in most forms of
mass medium these days and i'm sure the examples are endless (think of the
Dos Equis website) and they can also be appropriations of
ideals/movements.

detournement:  This is supposedly a more subversive manner of
appropriation in which the producer of the work is seeking to appropriate
the style/form/message of a mainstream work/dominant culture in order to
expose/critique the racist/hegemonic/exploitive message that underlies
these supposedly benign cultural products/institutional messages.  Think
of the situ posters/cartoons. Movies, such as, John Paizs' "Springtime in
Greenland" (1983), Todd haynes "Superstar: The karen carpenter story"
(1988), and Lewis Klahr's "Altair" (1991). Or internet web-movies such as
Craig baldwin's "Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies under America" and David
Blair's "Wax; or, the discovery of television among the bees." Or they can
be simply exposing the stultifying banality of an educational tool that
has been used to numb the minds of generations of American kids as in
Derek Pell's brilliant "Elements of Style".  

the power of this method is that you achieve a jarring juxtaposition of
the supposedly benign images with the radical message---hopefully leading
to subvert the dominant image and leading the consumers (yes i still would
think of your target audience as being consumers) to question the
falsified messages of the dominant culture/capitalist system.  In other
words to strip the dominant ideology bare---Scott macKenzie states this is
a form of "Termite Culture" and I think that metaphor is appropriate---for
these artists/radicals/whatever are attempting to burrow in to the
cultural mansion (as Jim Collin's puts it in "Uncommon Cultures" a mansion
with the upper floors delineated as high culture and theground floor as
popular/folk culture and the basement as mass culture) and to bring the
cultural house of cards crashing down---in order perhaps to create a new
freer-flowing structure?  The termite, the bane of property owning
society, thus makes a great symbol for this method.

Hope this helps and looking forward to the criticisms.

Crash



On Mon, 16 Nov 1998, A Spectacle wrote:

> 
> 
> What is the difference between what the post-modernists call
> "appropriation" and "detournement"?  Both applications/tools make reference
> (often ironic) to past works and twist viewer/reader expectations.
> 
> ------nick
> 
> 
> 
> The use of the word detournment is frequent on this list. In the recent
> past, it seems that the word has been misused, or the definition of it
> has been stretched to obscure its original meaning. Perhaps this will be
> of some help:
> 
> d?tournement
> 
> Used as an abbreviation for the formula: d?tournement of prefabricated
> aesthetic elements. The integration of past or present artistic
> production into a superior environmental construction. In this sense,
> there cannot be situationist painting, or music, but a situationist use
> of these media. In a more primitive sense, d?tournement from within old
> cultural spheres is a form of propaganda, which lays witness to the
> depletion and waning importance of these spheres.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------malavita
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 




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