** Tactics / Strategies: - Society of the Spectacle: Written in 1966  Society of the Spectacle is a critique of contemporary consumer culture and [commodity fetishism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism).  In a consumer society, social life is not about living, but about having; the spectacle uses the image to convey what people need and must have. Consequently, social life moves further, leaving a state of "having" and proceeding into a state of "appearing"; namely the appearance of the image. "The spectacle is not a collection of images," Debord writes, "rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images." - Detournement / Anti-Copyright A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the [Letterist International](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterist_International),[[1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tournement#cite_note-ReportManifesto57-0)[[2]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tournement#cite_note-SI58-1) and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." [[3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tournement#cite_note-Holt2010p252-2) Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called [situationist prank](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_prank) that was reprised by the [punk movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_movement) in the late 1970s[[4]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tournement#cite_note-Marrone05-3) and inspired the [culture jamming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming) movement in the late 1980s.[[3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tournement#cite_note-Holt2010p252-2) One could view detournement as forming the opposite side of the coin to '[recuperation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation)' (where radical ideas and images become safe and commodified), in that images produced by the spectacle get altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning becomes changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositional message.  taking well-known images, messages, and symbols and rearranging them in ways that convey a different (usually opposing) meaning. It's executed best when a cursory glance tells the viewer that everything is normal, but reveals some outrageous or unexpected elements upon closer inspection. The Situationist International published their works with an explicit anti-copyright notice which states that the writings may be "freely reproduced, translated, or adapted, without even indicating their origin."  - #### Derive (Offshoot) : Something that changes our way of seeing the streets is more important than something that changes our way of seeing paintings. In [psychogeography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography), a dérive is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually [urban](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City), where an individual travels where the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding [architecture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture) and [geography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography) subconsciously direct them with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience. [Situationist theorist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International) [Guy Debord](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord) defines the dérive as "a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances." He also notes that "the term also designates a specific uninterrupted period of dériving."[[1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive#cite_note-Debord1958Definitions-0) The term is literally translated into English as drift. - Staging of Situations -  The aim of situations is "to wake up the spectator who has been drugged by spectacular images,"  -through radical action situations bring a revolutionary reordering of life, politics, and art". Situations are actively created moments characterized by "a sense of self-consciousness of existence within a particular environment or ambience" [Occupation and Revolt] Five students got themselves elected into the chairman of the student union at a University (Nanterre) in France, their aim was to subvert the council and use the little power they had just won to destroy power itself. They turned to the SI for revolutionary backing, who in turn wrote the provocative brochure paid by the university. On the miserable conditions of the student... soon came into the hands of the director and dean of the university and then the media. A scandal ensued. And like a virus the SI doctrine went viral.  #### The police and the gendarmerie mobile invaded the courtyard of the Sorbonne without meeting resistance. The students were encircled. The police then offered them free passage out of the courtyard. The students accepted and the first to leave were in fact allowed to pass. The operation took time and other students began to gather outside in the quarter. The remaining two hundred demonstrators inside the Sorbonne, including all the organizers, were arrested. As the police vans carried them away the Latin Quarter erupted. One of the two vans never reached its destination. Only three policemen guarded the second van. They were beaten up, and several dozen demonstrators escaped. #### The whole of May 6th was marked by demonstrations which turned into riots early in the afternoon. The first barricades were thrown up at the Place Maubert and defended for three hours.  #### It was the first time in many years that several thousand students in Paris had fought the police for so long and with such energy. Endless charges, greeted with hails of paving stones, failed to clear the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the adjoining streets until several hours later. Some six hundred people were arrested. ####  cars were overturned and set afire, paving stones were dug up for the barricades, and stores were looted. The use of subversive slogans, which had begun at Nanterre, had now spread to several parts of Paris. Insofar as the rioters were able to strengthen the barricades, and thus their own capacity for counterattack, the police were forced to abandon direct charges for a position strategy which relied mainly on offensive grenades and tear gas. #### May 6th also marked the first intervention of workers, blousons noirs, the unemployed, and high school students who that morning had organized important demonstrations. The spontaneity and violence of the riots stood in vivid contrast to the cliches put forth by their academic initiators as goals and slogans. The experience of may of 68 was a situation of universally felt intensity. Situationist saw it as a future oriented result of true political action. They reached the zenith of their influence in the events and became increasingly nostalgic shortly after the end of the revolt, finally dismantling in 1972.   The movement of occupation was obviously a refusal of alienated work. It was a festival, a game, a real presence of real people in real time.  “We have made Paris dance.” (Debord) - [What were they about] Against the boredom, passivity and alienation that is part of the modern world To replace the spectacle which condemns the observer into such passivity With an active, physical, creative experience The disappearance of forced labor of wage laborers coincided with an explosion of creativity in all fields, in written, spoken language, in behavior, in tactics and techniques of struggle, songs, posters, etc It demonstrated the quantity of energy lost in the time spent trying to survive, the days condemned to work, in shopping in front of the tv, in what has become the principle of passivity. Situationists did not see meaning, happiness or intensity as accidental states to be pursued by the individual, there has to be more than just improving people’s material existence  - SLOGANS “Never Work” “Boredom is always counter-revolutionary” “I take my wishes for reality for I believe in the reality of my wishes” **