PART 5 - RESEARCH ON SITUATIONIST DRIFT THEORY


Situationism in Photography
and the influence of drift theory on Assignment 5

Before deepening the research on photography in Situationism, or rather Situationist Photography, I searched on google with the keyword "Situationism". I was thus able to verify that Situationism was a movement that, from the beginning, was strongly characterized, if not originated, by a well-defined socio-political vision.


"The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972.[1]
The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from anti-authoritarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism.[1] Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.[1] The situationists recognized that capitalism had changed since Karl Marx's formative writings, but maintained that his analysis of the capitalist mode of production remained fundamentally correct; they rearticulated and expanded upon several classical Marxist concepts, such as his theory of alienation.[1] In their expanded interpretation of Marxist theory, the situationists asserted that the misery of social alienation and commodity fetishism were no longer limited to the fundamental components of capitalist society, but had now in advanced capitalism spread themselves to every aspect of life and culture.[1] They rejected the idea that advanced capitalism's apparent successes—such as technological advancement, increased income, and increased leisure—could ever outweigh the social dysfunction and degradation of everyday life that it simultaneously inflicted.[1]"...."

"....When the Situationist International was first formed, it had a predominantly artistic focus; emphasis was placed on concepts like unitary urbanism and psychogeography.[1] Gradually, however, that focus shifted more towards revolutionary and political theory.[1] The Situationist International reached the apex of its creative output and influence in 1967 and 1968, with the former marking the publication of the two most significant texts of the situationist movement, The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. The expressed writing and political theory of the two aforementioned texts, along with other situationist publications, proved greatly influential in shaping the ideas behind the May 1968 insurrections in France; quotes, phrases, and slogans from situationist texts and publications were ubiquitous on posters and graffiti throughout France during the uprisings.[..." 

As far as I am concerned, I was not interested in socio-political implications, then I restricted research not only to situationist photography, but even more selectively to the "drift theory", which had Guy Debord as its main promoter.

I then conducted the google search with these keywords and selected an IUAV document, from an Italian university, entitled "Theory of drift: original text by Guy Debord".

http://www.iuav.it/Ateneo1/docenti/docenti201/Borelli-Gu/materiali-/A-A--2015-/LETTURE-SO/Debord_La-teoria-della-deriva1.pdf , accessed on 03/09/2019).

The text is very interesting and has allowed me to access these concepts in a practical way, without having to read all the concepts, philosophical and political thoughts that are at the origin of Situationism.

The text is taken from "Guy Debord, Théoriedeladérive, in LesLèvresnues, n. 9, November 1956, Brussels; republished without the two appendices inInternationale Situationniste, n ° 2, December 1958, Paris; trad.it. Situationist International, Nautilus, Turin . "
 
I, in turn, have extracted some significant phrases that have led me to an attempt to apply the drift in the photographic process that led me to the completion of the Assignment 5.

Text translated using Google Translator.

".....Among the different situationist procedures, the drift appears as a technique of fast passage through various environments. The concept of drift is inextricably linked to recognizing effects of a psychogeographic nature and the affirmation of a playful-constructive behavior, which from all points of view opposes it to the classical notions of travel and walking. One or more people who let themselves drift away for a longer or shorter period of time give up the reasons for moving and acting which are generally habitual to them, concerning the relationships, the jobs and the amusements that are their own, to leave themselves go to the solicitations of the terrain and the meetings that correspond to it. The part of randomness is here less decisive than one would think: from the point of view of the drift, there is a psychogeographic relief of the cities, with constant currents, fixed points and vortices that make accessing or leaking from certain areas. But the drift, in its unity, includes at the same time this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domain of psychogeographic variations through the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities. In this last aspect, the data highlighted by ecology, although the social space that this science proposes to study is limited a priori, do not cease to usefully support psychogeographic thinking....."

I, despite having in mind the theme that I wanted to develop in Assignment 5, I have, as the text states, tried to let me go to the solicitations of the path and of what I encountered, while supporting psychogeographic thinking, namely actively receiving the environmental stresses and the data highlighted by the ecology of my surroundings.

It was not an easy task, because it is necessary to remain in balance between two antithetical attitudes and whose juxtaposition seems and is paradoxical: the "letting go", the "awareness of letting go" and the "conscious understanding" of the place where one is let it go.

My awareness, however, originated from the need to follow, at that moment, two thematic paths: one was the perception of the perennial incumbent of the artifact-highway on my points of view, the other was to grasp the traces of the direct and indirect consequences on the urban territory of the advent of the artifact-highway, without the presence of the human being, but with the "presence of absence" on the part of the human being.

The correctness of my effort is confirmed by the following statement:

".....In the drift, the case plays a more important role the more the psychogeographic observation is still uncertain. But the action of chance is naturally conservative and tends, within a new framework, to bring everything back to the alternation of a limited number of variants, and to habit. Since progress is never anything but the breaking of one of the fields in which the case is exercised, with the creation of new and more favorable conditions for our projects, we can say that if the contingencies of the drift are fundamentally different from those of the promenade, however the first discovered psychogeographic attractions risk fixing the subject, or the group, adrift around new habitual axes to which everything leads them constantly...."

Speaking of awareness, I had been warned by the following statement:

 
"....An insufficient distrust of the case, and its always reactionary ideological use, condemned to a painful failure the famous aimless ambulation attempted in 1923 by four surrealists starting from a randomly chosen city: the wandering in the open countryside is evidently depressing and the interventions of the case are poorer than ever....."

The continuation of the text illustrates techniques and rules that should be followed in order to favor a "perfect drift", but I would like to "disobey", in the most classic situationist way of doing things, affirming that my method of letting myself go into the urban landscape and not, for almost three days, allowed me to achieve the result I was hoping for. 

I did it all by myself, almost by foot, I met very few people, I didn't interact with them because they weren't local, but I interacted with the environment, wandering without a particular destination, without a particular path, letting myself be guided by the visual sensations that this raped landscape sent me.

It was a fascinating experience, which allowed me to create a body of work that I believe is significant. I still have a long way to go, a lot of drift to apply, but I believe that from now on this method will be part of my photography and will influence my image-composition.


Other interesting sites:




 http://pinobertelli.it/della-fotografia-situazionista/

 https://louderthanwar.com/situationism-explained-affect-punk-pop-culture/

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm

 https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html