by Shriya Malhotra
A symbolic representation of Constant Nieuwenhuys's "New Babylon." Source: Vague Terrain
The Situationists: Art and Urban Activism
The Situationist movement emerged as a critique of capitalism in 1957 and played a key role in the May 1968 uprising in Paris. Although the organization officially dissolved in 1972, its ideas and tactics have been adopted in social movements throughout the world. Recent financial and political crises have spurred a particularly strong revival in cities like Paris, New York and now Moscow.
According to Simon Sadler, author of "The Situationist City," the Situationists argued that professional architecture had led to "a sterilization of the world that threatened to wipe out any sense of spontaneity or playfulness." They believed that people should have a say in how the spaces they inhabit are designed and organized. "This would instantly undermine the powers of state, bureaucracy, capital, and imperialism, thereby revolutionizing people's everyday lives," Sadler writes.
Ideas for a Situationist city exist in texts, drawings and films by members of the movement. Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys envisioned a "New Babylon":
The Situationists developed a series of concepts and practices aimed at realizing their visions of societal change, including psychogeography (an often ambulatory exploration of the ways different environments influence human feelings and actions), dérive (drifting, or walking without a set course through landscapes primarily in cities) and the situation (a "revolutionary" moment arranged to inspire people to examine and improve their daily lives through creative exploration).
Such practices — whether adopted with the Situationists in mind or not — are evident in Occupy movements worldwide, and most recently in Moscow.
A street sign near the site of Occupy Abai, hacked with a white ribbon that symbolizes the Russian pro-democracy movement. Source: Shriya Malhotra
Occupy Abai: Performed Resistance
Moscow's Occupy Abai movement is part of a new pattern of tactical resistance to the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The name refers to a statue of the Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbayev, located along the Boulevard Ring, a tree-lined path that curves around central Moscow. People began camping there to protest the violent suppression of a rally on May 6, just before Putin's inauguration. Many others visited to show support. Some gave speeches and engaged in debate, reflecting on current conditions and collaborating toward change. The atmosphere was festive and peaceful, unstructured but somehow orderly.
There was a strong element of art and performance at Occupy Abai, characteristic of Occupy movements around the world. Participants displayed a humor and poetry in their signs, reminiscent of Situationist tactics. The movement included lectures, discussions and small participatory concerts. It transformed at times into mass strolls through the city to avoid restrictions on congregating in public space. The events have become an ever-changing mix of performed resistance.
Moscow's protest movement is both a stand against corrupt autocratic rule and a response to daily living conditions of massive traffic jams, unaffordable costs of living, environmental degradation, income inequality and exclusion. A lack of pedestrian-friendly streets alienates many in Moscow. Walking and cycling become a form of resistance when prohibited or highly restricted. This "movement" includes a call for more healthy, vibrant, people-oriented street life, in keeping with the ideas of William Whyte, Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl.
Politics of the Everyday
The practice of daily life is part of the resistance, and its performance is in public space. People appear to be performing a version of daily life in the city that they would like to see come true — one of free expression, wandering, social life and gatherings in public spaces.
Particularly interesting is the role of the Internet, which may be seen as a form of wandering in the virtual realm. It is part of what Debord called the society of spectacle ("a social relationship between people that is mediated by images"), but it also serves as a tool for interaction in the physical world. In Moscow, the use of online "public space" for community-building is blossoming in urban spaces where it didn't comfortably exist before. In the process, these spaces are being reconfigured and reclaimed.
Philosopher and investigator of daily life Michel de Certeau, in his book "The Practice of Everyday Life," asserts that a person walking on the street moves in ways that are tactical and can never be fully determined by the plans of governing bodies. This may take the form of mundane private transgressions as well as collective public protest. In Moscow, protesters have been detained for "wandering." In response to social, political and economic alienation in cities, people are reinterpreting notions of strolling and loitering in hopes of revitalizing public space.
A Situationist map of Paris. Source: Spatial Design
Like the Situationists, protesters in Moscow are calling for greater participation and collaboration in creating the city. People are engaging in public life through activities like cycling, walking, conversation, sharing food and planting flowers. They are acting within legal limits, moving about in public and using public spaces for what they were meant for: public use!
The Occupy movement has sparked a re-examination of urban space and how it is used. As the Situationists understood, cities need the ability to reinvent themselves based on the expressed requirements and dreams of the people living in them.
Shriya Malhotra is an urbanist from New Delhi, India who believes in arts-based participation and mapping to create better cities. She writes for Pattern Cities and is an editor at Partizaning.
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The goal of the situationists is immediate participation in a passionate abundance of life by means of deliberately arranged variations of ephemeral moments. The success of these moments can reside in nothing other than their fleeting effect. The situationists consider cultural activity in its totality as an experimental method for constructing everyday life, a method that can and should be continually developed with the extension of leisure and the withering away of the division of labor (beginning with the division of artistic labor).
— Guy Debord, "Theses on Cultural Revolution," 1958The Occupy movement in Moscow is a response to very different political conditions than those of Occupy movements in other parts of the world. However, it shares an orientation toward performed resistance based on a desire to claim the right to space and challenge the abuse of power. Occupy tactics call to mind the Situationist International in their creative integration of art, politics and everyday life in cities.
A symbolic representation of Constant Nieuwenhuys's "New Babylon." Source: Vague Terrain
The Situationists: Art and Urban Activism
The Situationist movement emerged as a critique of capitalism in 1957 and played a key role in the May 1968 uprising in Paris. Although the organization officially dissolved in 1972, its ideas and tactics have been adopted in social movements throughout the world. Recent financial and political crises have spurred a particularly strong revival in cities like Paris, New York and now Moscow.
According to Simon Sadler, author of "The Situationist City," the Situationists argued that professional architecture had led to "a sterilization of the world that threatened to wipe out any sense of spontaneity or playfulness." They believed that people should have a say in how the spaces they inhabit are designed and organized. "This would instantly undermine the powers of state, bureaucracy, capital, and imperialism, thereby revolutionizing people's everyday lives," Sadler writes.
Ideas for a Situationist city exist in texts, drawings and films by members of the movement. Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys envisioned a "New Babylon":
The need to work is replaced with a nomadic life of creative play, in which traditional architecture has disintegrated along with the social institutions that it propped up... Social life becomes architectural play. Architecture becomes a flickering display of interacting desires.The Situationist city is more of an approach to urban living than a prescriptive plan. Cities once dedicated to work and capital accumulation become sites of playful experimentation based on the involvement of urban inhabitants in shaping their environments. Art and technology are combined in creating places that more fully coincide with human needs.
The Situationists developed a series of concepts and practices aimed at realizing their visions of societal change, including psychogeography (an often ambulatory exploration of the ways different environments influence human feelings and actions), dérive (drifting, or walking without a set course through landscapes primarily in cities) and the situation (a "revolutionary" moment arranged to inspire people to examine and improve their daily lives through creative exploration).
Such practices — whether adopted with the Situationists in mind or not — are evident in Occupy movements worldwide, and most recently in Moscow.
A street sign near the site of Occupy Abai, hacked with a white ribbon that symbolizes the Russian pro-democracy movement. Source: Shriya Malhotra
Occupy Abai: Performed Resistance
Moscow's Occupy Abai movement is part of a new pattern of tactical resistance to the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The name refers to a statue of the Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbayev, located along the Boulevard Ring, a tree-lined path that curves around central Moscow. People began camping there to protest the violent suppression of a rally on May 6, just before Putin's inauguration. Many others visited to show support. Some gave speeches and engaged in debate, reflecting on current conditions and collaborating toward change. The atmosphere was festive and peaceful, unstructured but somehow orderly.
There was a strong element of art and performance at Occupy Abai, characteristic of Occupy movements around the world. Participants displayed a humor and poetry in their signs, reminiscent of Situationist tactics. The movement included lectures, discussions and small participatory concerts. It transformed at times into mass strolls through the city to avoid restrictions on congregating in public space. The events have become an ever-changing mix of performed resistance.
Moscow's protest movement is both a stand against corrupt autocratic rule and a response to daily living conditions of massive traffic jams, unaffordable costs of living, environmental degradation, income inequality and exclusion. A lack of pedestrian-friendly streets alienates many in Moscow. Walking and cycling become a form of resistance when prohibited or highly restricted. This "movement" includes a call for more healthy, vibrant, people-oriented street life, in keeping with the ideas of William Whyte, Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl.
Politics of the Everyday
The practice of daily life is part of the resistance, and its performance is in public space. People appear to be performing a version of daily life in the city that they would like to see come true — one of free expression, wandering, social life and gatherings in public spaces.
Particularly interesting is the role of the Internet, which may be seen as a form of wandering in the virtual realm. It is part of what Debord called the society of spectacle ("a social relationship between people that is mediated by images"), but it also serves as a tool for interaction in the physical world. In Moscow, the use of online "public space" for community-building is blossoming in urban spaces where it didn't comfortably exist before. In the process, these spaces are being reconfigured and reclaimed.
Philosopher and investigator of daily life Michel de Certeau, in his book "The Practice of Everyday Life," asserts that a person walking on the street moves in ways that are tactical and can never be fully determined by the plans of governing bodies. This may take the form of mundane private transgressions as well as collective public protest. In Moscow, protesters have been detained for "wandering." In response to social, political and economic alienation in cities, people are reinterpreting notions of strolling and loitering in hopes of revitalizing public space.
A Situationist map of Paris. Source: Spatial Design
Like the Situationists, protesters in Moscow are calling for greater participation and collaboration in creating the city. People are engaging in public life through activities like cycling, walking, conversation, sharing food and planting flowers. They are acting within legal limits, moving about in public and using public spaces for what they were meant for: public use!
The Occupy movement has sparked a re-examination of urban space and how it is used. As the Situationists understood, cities need the ability to reinvent themselves based on the expressed requirements and dreams of the people living in them.
Shriya Malhotra is an urbanist from New Delhi, India who believes in arts-based participation and mapping to create better cities. She writes for Pattern Cities and is an editor at Partizaning.
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