B U R E A U O F P U B L I C S E C R E T S
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Definitions
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constructed situation
- A moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization
of a unitary ambience and a game of events.
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- situationist
- Relating to the theory or practical activity of constructing situations. One who engages
in the construction of situations. A member of the Situationist International.
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- situationism
- A meaningless term improperly derived from the above. There is no such thing as
situationism, which would mean a doctrine for interpreting existing conditions. The notion
of situationism is obviously devised by antisituationists.
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- psychogeography
- The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment (whether consciously
organized or not) on the emotions and behavior of individuals.
- psychogeographical
- Relating to psychogeography. That which manifests the geographical environment’s
direct emotional effects.
- psychogeographer
- One who explores and reports on psychogeographical phenomena.
- dérive
- A mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique
of rapid passage through varied ambiences. The term also designates a specific
uninterrupted period of dériving.
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- unitary urbanism
- The theory of the combined use of arts and techniques as means contributing to the
construction of a unified milieu in dynamic relation with experiments in behavior.
- détournement
- Short for “détournement of preexisting aesthetic elements.” The integration
of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu. In this
sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those
means. In a more elementary sense, détournement within the old cultural spheres is a
method of propaganda, a method which reveals the wearing out and loss of importance of
those spheres.
- culture
- The reflection and prefiguration of the possibilities of organization of everyday life
in a given historical moment; a complex of aesthetics, feelings and mores through which a
collectivity reacts on the life that is objectively determined by its economy. (We are
defining this term only in the perspective of creating values, not in that of teaching
them.)
- decomposition
- The process in which traditional cultural forms have destroyed themselves as a result of
the emergence of superior means of controlling nature which make possible and necessary
superior cultural constructions. We can distinguish between the active phase of the
decomposition and effective demolition of the old superstructures — which came to an
end around 1930 — and a phase of repetition that has prevailed since that time. The
delay in the transition from decomposition to new constructions is linked to the delay in
the revolutionary liquidation of capitalism.
SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
1958
These definitions originally appeared in Internationale Situationniste
#1 (Paris, June 1958). This translation by Ken Knabb is from the
Situationist
International Anthology (Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006). No copyright.
[Other Situationist Texts]
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