1. Space and Social Power Relations
Situationist International:
Debord creatively rewrote Marx's Capital: A Critique of Political Economy[1] "commodity society" into "spectacle of society" in his book La Société du spectacle[2]. The most profound and enduring contribution to critical theory. In sum, the society of the spectacle refers to the world woven by the illusion of capital, commodities, consumers and media. At this time, the logic of capital abstracts all commodities into a kind of "representation", and what people consume is not the commodity itself, but its representational relationship: a value system composed of symbols - that is, "spectacle". Debord believes that the spectacle is not a gathering of images, but a social relationship between people mediated by images. This image system obscures the oppressive and unequal social relationships in the real world. It is a kind of disengagement and non-dialogue. Important strategies for implementing controls.
[1] Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1, Chinese 2nd Edition, People's Publishing House, 2004, P189.
[2]Guy Ernest Dobord, Landscape Society [M]. Nanjing University Press, 2006, P11.
Bruno Barbey, 1968
Other space-related support materials：
Seeing space as a product of social production begins with Lefebvre. In 1974, the French philosopher Lefebvre published The Production of Space (Lefebvre. (1974/1991)[1]. In this book, Lefebvre put forward the theoretical proposition that "space is a product of society", "space as a product is not a specific product, but a relationship", therefore, we cannot " Treat social space and social time as natural facts that must be normalized according to certain hierarchies".
The “spatial turn” of humanities and social sciences experienced in the 1980s brought about fundamental changes in people’s understanding of space. The original physical, static and abstract living scenes or containers broke free from the shackles of tradition and began to show multi-dimensional dynamic vitality. [2]
We are becoming more and more aware of the fact that we exist essentially as a space, and we are constantly busy producing collective acts of space, place, region, environment, and dwelling. Space is no longer an inert object, but an organic living body, a work of history and nature, as well as the construction and result of human social practice, knowledge, and concepts. [3]
[1]Lefebvre H, Donald Nicholson-Smith. The Production of Space[M]. Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1991.P99.
[2] Xie Shufen. Gender Politics in Space: A Spatial Critical Interpretation of "Waltz" [J]. Journal of Dongguan University of Technology, 2016, 23(06): 30-36.
[3] Soja E W. Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions[M]. Blackwell, 2000.P22.
Additional Notes About Situationist International：
The Situationist International was a radical movement devoted to the disruption and reimagining of the systems which govern everyday life, growing out of several already existing political groups. Like those groups it was anti-capitalist, and left-leaning, but was also committed to the disruption of the hegemonic politics of Europe in the late 20th century through artistic praxis as well as political agitation. Although eventually fracturing, SI provided a blueprint for rebels and artistic dissidents still followed today.
Situationism valued the decentralization of creation, with artists working in collaboration or under shared names to undermine the notion of the single genius or visionary. This has gone on to be one of the most enduring aspects of their legacy, directly inspiring many artist collectives and groups.
Space is not just a physical concept, but a social product of the power hierarchy.
Situationism valued the decentralization of creation, and this is consistent with the essence of contemporary feminism against the centralization of gender power.
2. Reinterpretation and reconstruction of daily life
Criticism of everyday life is another major issue pondered by Situationism, who believe that "everyday life is the most severely repressed and fragmented area of modern power and institutions"[1]. Everyday life has become an organized object. Situationism believes that all real possibilities and real desires in everyday life are repressed and blinded, and in a society where consumption is controlled, people's real everyday life gives way to false spectacle consumption, while life itself is painfully absent. . The logic of capital has penetrated into all aspects of social life, and daily life such as leisure and entertainment are organized like consumption. The over-organization of everyday life has made it a domain of specialized activity and ideological domination, and knowledge is generally outside of real everyday life, a technocratic semiotic language, a cultural specialization. Appropriate, abstract categories continue to replace concrete social realities, and knowledge becomes an instrument of power. For Debord, our entire lives are governed by the spectacle, and this is capitalism's deepest self-alienation.
[1] Liu Huaiyu. Criticism of Everyday Life: Towards a Philosophy of Micro-Concrete Ontology. Journal of Social Sciences of Jilin University, 2007 (9)
Inspired by this point of view, I decided to perform everyday actions as an important element of my work.
3. Space symbolizes the theory of Power Relations in art- Situationist Internationa in art
Debord defines "dérivé" in Situationist International: a technique of transient passage through varied ambiences. Due to the introduction of playful construction and the influence of psychogeography, it is different from walking in the traditional sense.
They later replaced the concept of "dérivé" with "psychogeography" because they saw a pattern of emotional force fields that could permeate the city, a driving force that would allow them to map those forces, and those results could then be as the basis for the establishment of a unified urbanist system.
Whether it is the "situation" mentioned here or the "poetic moment" advocated by Lefebvre, the founder of urban sociology and the father of the critical theory of everyday life in the earlier period, both intend to escape from the framework of instrumental rationality and developed capitalist life. They encourage diverse and heterogeneous groups to pursue the artistic, festive, and instantiating of everyday life as a way to resist the banal, entertaining, and consumer-led everyday life.
In the early 1980s, de Seto continued the idea of urban "dérivé" in The Practice of Everyday Life: The Art of Practice, where he encouraged people to become practitioners of ordinary urban life rather than a panoramic observation. In his view, the "walking game" is to process the space to create various places, and interact with the space system in the place."
[1] Michel de Seto, the practice of everyday life: the art of practice[M]. Nanjing University Press. 2009-5. P73.
List of related artists：
Guy Debord, Psychogeographique de Paris, 1957
Sous les pavés, la plage！, 1968
Situationist International develops an art form that interacts with social spaces through daily behaviors.
4. Second space, third space and digital space
Lefebvre introduced a set of triadic concepts (conceptual trinity) of spatial analysis: spatial practice, (representations of space, spaces of representations. This triadic dialectics of space was described by Edward Soja, an American human geographer. Developed and interpreted as three levels of social or urban space. Representational space, also called "third space" by Soja (Soja, 1996, 68).
This level of spatial practice is close to the physical space, and it is also the performance characteristic of social relations in space, which is the "perceived space" (Soja, 1996: 66). representations of space is a conceptual space, "the spatial order of this level is imposed by the designer, and reflects the designer's knowledge and symbols" (Soja, 1996: 67); the third level is designated as spaces of representations, this space highlights the hidden side of the social life represented by the space. In this level of space, the participants of the space practice are in it, manipulating and appropriating various ways of spatial meaning and power operation, and jointly creating a figurative living space (Soja, 1996: 68) ). In short, the first space is material space, the second space is imaginary space, and the third space is practical space (Lefebvre, 1991: 33, 38-39).
Lefebvre's triadic dialectics of space opens up a way for us to connect "space" and "medium". This passage not only means that the third space is a spatial level based on the first and second spaces, but also means that the three spaces themselves are highly overlapping and inter-embedded. In modern urban space, digital technology connects the real space where people live and the virtual space that creates meaning and discourse. Castel believes that the emergence of virtual space and global network will eliminate the particularity of modern urban space, social functions and power can be reconstructed in virtual mobile space, and its logic will dominate the dynamic meaning of real local space. Ultimately, all spatiality will collapse into virtual space, forming a networked, ahistorical fluid space [3].
[1] Lefebvre H, Donald Nicholson-Smith. The Production of Space[M]. Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1991. xix.
[2] Soja,E.W.(1996).Thirdspace:Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places.Cambridge,UK:Blackwell Publishers Inc.
[3] Manuel Custer (1997/2001). "The Rise of the Network Society" (translated by Xia Zhujiu, Wang Zhihong, etc.). Beijing: Social Science Literature Publishing House. P524.
Today, when the concept of the metaverse prevails, the digital space has been developed. In the digital space, the second space (imaginary space) can be visualized to a greater extent, and the digital space has also become a collection of symbolic and conceptual spaces. And with the development of sensory technology, the second space is rapidly transforming into the third space (practical space), and the digital space has become an important place for community interaction.
The digital space will become a symbol of the power relationship in the real space, and the real power imbalance problem will be more intensively presented in the digital space.
The above research inspired me to try to practice interactive performance in digital space through daily behavior, to question the phenomenon of centralization of power in reality and digital space.