Week 2: Situationist international

Lecture:


Shane Hasemann presented a lecture this week on the Situationist international. An Avaunt Garde post war movement which explored contemporary capitalism in creating and shaping a revolution. The movement began in Italy and western Europe dealing with the legacy of surrealism. Bernstein, Jon and Debor where key players in the movement, yet the primary players of the movement where the group known as the situationalists. 


Their primary agenda was to combine politics and art to alter the commonly held lifestyle at the time, of work and no play, with a life based on desire and passion. Life was now perceived as a situation, ever evolving. Art was now not only a viewed object, but a lived experience where the interactions and events in everyday life created the artwork itself.


The situationist also explored the concept of drifting and psycho-geography to create an alternate mapping system of the city. This looked to ambiance, location, experience and the effects that landmarks and places had on the physique of the individual to create a city of the future. Only the places perceived to be important by the situationist were relevant and documented in the form of maps. 


"New Babylon" by Constant is an example of this mapping idea. Constant looked at psycho-geography and creating prototypes of transportable modular abodes to create a new city, one of interest and intrigue built on top of the old world. 

Class exercise: Mapping 


This mapping idea was carried out further into class work. In our small groups we mapped our journey to Foley st with similar reasoning to that of the situationists'. The theme of nature and the presence of greenery in the street was chosen as our mapping focus. We used green cone structures in varying sizes to show where the concentration of greenery was on our journey to and around Foley street. This helped to illustrate the vacancy of nature as a metaphor for life and all things living in UTS and Foley street, juxtaposed with the overflowing and all encompassing greenery that was Hyde park. It is clear that the balance of life in this instance is not even and it was our intention to make this clear.