Meanwhile, over at Jim Treacher's weblog, he's modifying Doonesbury strips (because, duh, this week's run is about web-logging.
It's not without some humor value, and he does it well. I just don't know that I think of it as detournment, as he seems to believe . Perhaps the more SI-toolset aware (Mike?) can correct me on this, but I think of detourment as the wholesale displacement of an item from one context for purposes of use in another. He's pushing bits around to make a point, but he's not moving away from the context of the work in question.
Posted by esinclai at October 24, 2002 06:51 AM |
I can't speak directly about it, since I rarely drop by Jim's (we agree about, um, nothing).
I have heard about the dustup, though.
I can talk about detournement. Technically, in terms of comics, it just means rewriting the dialog of a cartoon to make a political point you agree with.
DeBord would probaly also insist it would only be valid if it agreed with his political viewpoint, and doing that (in addition to being impossible if you are not DeBord) would require a wholesale and outright rejection of the industrial and social circumstances that led to the production of the original comic strip itself, which is what I think you mean, Eric.
So, to summarize: if Guy DeBord controls the meaning of the word detournement, anything Jim Treacher does ain't it.
However, DeBord's most important lesson to the world is that no individual controls meaning in language or cultural artifact, so maybe what Jim's doing is, in fact, detournement... if he says that's what it is.
kapische?
Posted by: mike on October 24, 2002 02:09 PMThat's the word I was told was the most accurate. If not, oh well. Mostly I just refer to it as "crap."
And you can only do it to make political points? You can't just make fun of somebody, or generally goof around? Because that's what I do, mainly.
Sorry you don't agree with me about anything, Mike. Homestart Runner and Achewood really are great!
Posted by: Jim Treacher on October 24, 2002 02:22 PMEr, HomeSTAR Runner. Those guys crack me up.
Posted by: Jim Treacher on October 24, 2002 02:23 PMhm, yeah, I likey the Achewood, actually.
I think maybe it's detournement, but, basically, I'm not the scorekeeper. DeBord was a ridiculous martinet who contradicted himself all the time. An authoritarian absolutist anarchist.
So, yeah, no jokes bu political jokes; but he could also argue that all jokes are political jokes. So it's best to just be grateful for the SI and not to pick nits about whether they're (that's DeBord, essentially) right or wrong.
Posted by: mike on October 24, 2002 04:16 PMSI? Sports Illustrated?
Achewood is so great. Be sure to check out Serializer.net. He's got color Sunday strips there. It's a pay site, but you get 30 different cartoonists for $3 a month. Pretty good deal.
Posted by: Jim Treacher on October 24, 2002 04:30 PMSI = Situationist Internationale, a french art studet drinking club with some good ideas at the right time and place: Paris, May, 1968.
Later, Greil Marcus will say that Malcolm McLaren largely borrowed his ideas for the Sex Pistols from the Situationists.
Reading the Situationists on the whole wide wide when you're a kid, especially when you're a punk rock kid is both good for you and bad for the world. I'd encourage the wide dissemination of the material, hopefully with me as publisher.
Posted by: mike on October 28, 2002 10:41 PMErr, "Debord". "Debord".
Not "DeBord".
It's nitpicking, sure, but that's how it's written, y'know b'gosh.