“The only historically justified tactic is extremist innovation” – Debord & Wolman, A User’s Guide to Détournement (1956)

I’ve been thinking about the Situationists for about a decade now, after learning of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle in some Propagandhi liner notes (I think) about a decade ago.  Sadly, after all that time, I’ve developed no great insights as to what the hell they were talking about.  I mean, I get the gist if that counts for anything, but I think to really grasp what they’re really getting at, one needs a graduate seminar and plenty of contextual knowledge.  Nevertheless, the shit is damn brilliant and informs my worldview in many ways (most of which are surely based on misreading).  Since presently, I do what one might call information work, and as a result have become heavily invested in the web and social networking, I’ll use this post to share some cool films by the Situationist International (SI), and briefly look at how the SI’s  ideas of spectacle, détournement, and separation apply to the social web.

Social networks as commodified existence…

I’ve always felt a certain ambivalence toward the Internet, particularly as it has become the prime mediator of social and professional interaction.  Obviously, we have experienced some real and perceived benefits due to our increasingly rapid adoption of technology (defining “technology” is problematic in many of the same ways as “information,” but let’s put that aside and assume I mean computers and electronics and stuff).  We have increased economic opportunities (for some), more free time (theoretically), greater safety and efficiency, instant production and communication without regard to geography, and access to unbelievable amounts of information.  But we can just as easily indict technology for it’s less benign social, political, and economic effects.  A short list of technology’s less celebrated effects might include: modern global warfare, loss of personal privacy, environmental devastation, and political (as well as social, economic, and cultural) hegemony — all brought to new heights by liberatory (at first glance) technology such as industrial automation; steam, electrical, and combustion power; the telephone; modern media; and any number of innovations in digital computing.  Of course, what we currently colloquially refer to as “technology” — the Internet — is equally hailed in alternation as a force for democracy and a catalyst for democracy’s demise.  Obviously, both are true in their own argumentation, but miss the larger point altogether.

With the relatively recent explosion of Web 2-point-oh!, social networks, etc., we see something notably different than what was experienced with earlier technologies.  Machines, electricity, cars, televisions, and the like, were all transformative and initially liberated in some sense; addressing (and inventing) needs, and conferring legitimacy and status to their early consumers.   In those regards, the Web is not different.  Where it departs from previous innovations is that it goes beyond creating, serving, and reinforcing consumer identity and consumer culture into actually displacing and disappearing the consumer as he exists in reality.  Debord identified this tendency in …the Spectacle as it relates to earlier (1960s) cultural conditions, but it is ripe for application to the 21st century, with it’s ravenous tech fetishism and fascination with identity construction and maintenence through social networks.

As you may have guessed, I recently picked up Society of the Spectacle for some rereading and found that basically the entirety of the first chapter is as effective a deconstruction of 21st c. new media culture as it was of television, films, and advertising in 1967.  Here’s a sample…

1

In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.

2

The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.

3

The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.

4

The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

5

The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual excess produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective.

6

Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the project of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.

I could continue quoting ad nauseum (actually, you may already be throwing up), but I’ll leave it to the reader to read more if they choose.  In the end, I’m still not sure where I stand on this.  I like the internet.  It’s amusing and often useful.  And as a worker in information and technology, I am actually not alienated from my own work.  More than ever, I have a high degree of control over the products of my labor. While I see the potential harm of these evolving conditions, I mostly see them in the bizarrely onanistic tweets/status updates of others.  I, naturally, am able to rise above the unreality of mediated life — so much so that I’m thinking about purchasing an island timeshare in Second Life to serve as respite for my World of Warcraft guild.  This, of course, would be done as an act of serious-parodic détournement (not to be confused with shallow irony), and thus would not be lame.

Détournement…

So, what is détournement?  A quick but insufficient answer might be found reference to hip hop, web mashups, Marcel Duchamp, or Adbusters. “In détournement, an artist reuses elements of well-known media to create a new work with a different message, often one opposed to the original” (Wikipedia).  A common example (though I’m not sure it was ever actually produced) would be to take the footage of The Birth of a Nation, and replace the text panels of that technical masterpiece with new music or text which would change (or détourne) the original meaning, from an egregiously racist historical lie, to something that crafts from the film’s intellectual content and technical strength an effective (and modern/correct/relevant) moral-political statement.  As Debord & Wolman point out (1956), if such a project merely attempts to negate the meaning through irony, counter-argument or comedic juxtaposition, it misses the opportunity and the point.  The best example I’ve seen, which serves as a better instruction than I can write, is René Viénet’s Can Dialectics Break Bricks?.

Film: Can Dialectics Break Bricks?: René Viénet, 1973: via U B U W E B

I’m not a great fan of the Debord films, though they do nicely illustrate, literally, the idea of the spectacular as it permeates our collective media life.  As with social networks, academia and high culture, the images Debord détournes in Society of the Spectacle are, individually and collectively, simultaneously useful, beautiful, and inspiring, as well as banal, authoritarian and vacuous. Like all cultural products, their meanings are contextual and constructed and can serve many masters at once.  The same is true of new media products, services, and cultural tendencies.

Film: Society of the Spectacle, parts 1 & 2: Guy Debord, 1973: via U B U W E B

Although new media culture has some very deep differences from traditional media culture working in its favor (openness, decentralization, interactivity), it’s yet to be seen how that will change over time.  Likewise, will the ubiquity of web-mediated social interaction continue on its current trajectory (whatever that might be is actually unclear), or will it evolve into new and unexpected forms?  I’ve got this idea that the (social) web is the perfect vehicle for détournement, though I’m less convinced it’s a worthy venue for cultural resistance.  Any thoughts?

Yes, that’s true.  I even got a Master’s Degree.  Now, I like history and other humanities for lots of reasons, not just because they’re sometimes kind of metal, but I figured that with my first post on this site I’d return to my roots and original reasons for liking history.

Strangely enough, this post will sort of fit in thematically with some of my others that are in the works in that one of my goals for this site is to highlight artists that I find interesting, under appreciated or just plain awesome.  So, get ready for some awesome medieval and Renaissance artworks.

Also, just to be clear, by metal I mean like fucking metal man.  Like with guitars and stuff.  Got me?

Gustave Dore

Gustave Dore is really metal (he’s also from the 19th century, so, not medieval at all really.  still super metal though).  I can appreciate the intricacies of Gustave Dore‘s etchings on a purely artistic level.  However, I can appreciate them much more on a purely metal level.  I’d say his interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy is my favorite.  For instance, Dore’s depiction for Canto XXVII shows the “Sowers of Dischord”, poor damned souls that they are, ripping themselves apart as their innards spew out.

Even his work on the Bible is pretty metal.  This really brings the up the question, unanswered by many except for maybe Zao, as to why is it that the Bible and Christian imagery in general is so metal?

I guess my first answer would be that both share a strange preoccupation with the Devil.  In fact, looking at Dore’s work on the Divine Comedy its interesting to note that the majority of his etchings deal with the Inferno, as opposed to Purgatory or Paradise.  I think this has much to do with the fact that hell, being what it is, would be the easiest to represent visually.  Theologically speaking (if I were a medieval Catholic, or I guess the 19th century Dore too), evil/hell/satan could all be represented visually because evil/hell/satan were all tied to a notion of physicality, just like the human body (which was also treated with mistrust).  The mind or spirit (like Paradise or God), on the other hand, were more ephemeral and, specifically, they were decidedly non-physical.  This is all due to some big theological debates that led to a body/spirit = evil/good stance by the Catholic church.  In any event, this theology would make it easier to picture or create an image of a monstrous horned demon than something of the “divine realm”.  Before I get on some crazy tangent about dualism (boy could tell you some tales about the Cathar heresy) or even iconography, lets see what all this has to do with metal.

First off, I honestly have no real idea, but lets just muse for a second.  I guess I’d say that metal, being really serious rock music, is concerned, as all great rock n roll is, with the human body and all of its more natural yet frowned upon needs and wants.  By this I guess I mean drugs, sex, moving around a lot in an aggressive yet not necessarily coordinated manner, and loud noise.  Given this, metal’s choice of Christian imagery is actually a pretty appropriate way, in my opinion, to enter such a debate.  If satan=body, that makes him a pretty obvious rock n roll choice.  I mean, why attack the 70s, 80s or 90s establishment when you can attack the historical root- the ancient and medieval church.  I mean, they’re the one’s that started all this anti-body, anti-sex, anti-cheap fun riff raff to begin with right?

As a side note, isn’t it kind of weird that a society would set itself up where its easy to visualize pure evil, but pure good is, by definition, not visually accessible?  Just sayin’.

Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch (yes, I had to copy and paste his name) is probably the most metal of all medieval artists.  Yes, he is in fact from the medieval period, albeit kind of late.  Again, I’ll just flat out admit that I have no idea what his paintings are supposed to mean exactly.  You would really think he was on drugs, although I’m guessing that he actually wasn’t, being the good Catholic that he was.  But man, there’s all sorts of flying fishes, flowers coming out of people’s asses, a demon that’s literally shitting people into a hole.  Its very intense and very metal.

Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, similar to Bosch in many ways, should also be mentioned here, although many of his most metal works are both very similar and of lesser quality than Bosch’s.  The Triumph of Death is an exception to the last statement.  I will also say that his depiction of the Tower of Babel (a copy hangs in my study) is quite epic, which is another aspect of metal.  Epicness (?) is really important to metal, as it was to people during the medieval period.  It’s important to lots of people though, but it seems to me the further back in time you go, the more epic the stories are.  Maybe that’s another reason for the Christian imagery.  I mean, depending on who you talk to, the Bible is and is not many things.  I would say, however, that few could deny that the Bible is quite epic.

Caravaggio

Caravaggio was also pretty metal, although he’s more Renaissance than medieval.  Also, a lot of his paintings aren’t that metal, to tell you the truth.  I’ll give him credit for the Medusa head (Greek mythology is also kind of metal), as well as the possibility that he murdered someone.  I don’t know, I’m not in love with the guy, but I’d feel bad leaving him off the list.

The Black Death

One of the most metal topics in medieval art was the Black Death, Bubonic Plague, the Plague (all great metal band names btw).  Its just a metal topic, I don’t know.  It’s so metal its even kind of hard to explain.  Hope you’ll enjoy a few examples.

The Point?

Obviously, there’s really no point to this article, I just thought it would be fun.  If anything, I hope to turn people on to some great artists, especially Dore, Bosch and Bruegel because while each is totally famous, sometimes I think that they don’t get enough exposure, especially to certain audiences.  Also, its an interesting historiographical framework.  I mean, we (historians) have imposed plenty of other subjectively constructed frameworks on the past (nation state, progress narrative, anything really- just read Hayden White, you’ll see what I mean), why not do something more fun.  If not metal, how about Radical History as in like surfer radical, not politically radical.  Think about it, it could be kind of postmodern or at the very least historical events would be connected only in the most nontraditional fashion.  For example:

1965- Snowboards are invented- way radical.

1993- Bill Clinton, who loved weed and saxophones became president- totally radical.

1994- My friend Doug ate 6 burritos in one sitting- most radical.

See what I mean?

I must also admit that this article had absolutely nothing to do with Digital anything, and for that I’m sorry.  I have no problem if anyone wants to make a mash-up of Gustave Dore’s artwork to metal music.  Maybe his interpretation of Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner with Iron Maiden’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner?   Just a thought.

Next time: I much more serious article on d.a.levy and new media.

Related Reading: Wikipedia: Dualism (sorry for all the wikipedia links by the way, i promise better research next time)