Remix, Détournement, and The Yes Men (4/28 Panel)

First of all we think the world must be changed. We want the most liberating change of the society and life in which we find ourselves confined. We know that this change is possible through appropriate actions. -Guy Debord, 1957

Ideas improve. The meaning of words plays a part in that improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress depends on it. It sticks close to an author’s phrasing, exploits his expressions, deletes a false idea, replaces it with the right one. -Guy Debord, 1967

Remix

• Produce new meanings and forms of expression out of cultural artifacts
• Creation of “expressive work that includes elements of a previously created work” (Networked, 105)
• Lawrence Lessig’s RO (read/only) culture versus RW (read/write) culture
• Cultures more comfortable with “simple consumption” versus cultures that add to existing forms through “re-creation” (Lessig, 28)
• Might pertain to particular cultural genres
• Music sampling and video editing

• Might also relate to larger political ideals
• Parody and satire part of remix culture in the form of “fake news”
• Détournement as mid-twentieth-century precursor to remix among the French Situationists

Détourne-what?

• Détournement: “the reuse of preexisting artistic elements in a new ensemble” (Debord, “Détournement,” 55)
• Used by the French Situationists to facilitate the construction of a “situation”
• Political and cultural revolutionaries, disgruntled with inauthentic societal and individual existence shaped by capitalistic ideals and industries
• Individuals as passive “spectators”
• They should be constructive “livers”!
• Sought construction of “situations” wherein they would disrupt the “spectacle” of mass media and representation
• “The construction of situations begins on the ruins of the modern spectacle.” (Debord, “Report,” 25)
• Why is détournement so effective?
• Its power “stems from the double meaning, from the enrichment of most of the terms by the coexistence within them of their old senses and their new, immediate senses…[and it] is practical because it is so easy to use and because of its inexhaustible potential for reuse” (Debord, “Détournement,” 55)
• Copper Greene’s iRaq (2004) in response to Abu Ghraib:

• Lt. John Pike at UC-Davis (2011):

Say “Yes” to the Construction of a Situation!

• The Yes Men
• Jacques Servin (Andy Bichlbaum) and Igor Vamos (Mike Bonanno)
• Professional pranksters
• More to it than just a good prank?
• Complementing mainstream journalism
• How?
• Identity correction: “Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them, and otherwise giving journalists excuses to cover important issues.” (The Yes Men website)
• Fake New York Times (Networked, 119-121)
• Complete digital version of the issue available here

• SurvivaBalls: “self-contained units that will allow somebody to survive no matter what happens to the climate” (Vamos/Bonanno in The Yes Men are Revolting)
• What the future will look like if leaders don’t come to an agreement to reduce greenhouse gasses!

Professional Prankster? How Do You Get That Job?!

• The Yes Lab
• “At the moment, the Yes Lab is mainly a series of brainstorms and trainings to help activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions, focused on their own campaign goals. It’s a way for social justice organizations to take advantage of all that we Yes Men have learned – not only about our own ways of doing things, but those we’ve come in contact with over the decade and a half we’ve been doing this sort of thing.” (“About,” Yes Lab website)
• New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics
• Let’s Give it a Try:
• “This College Student Was Kicked Off a Flight Because He Speaks Arabic. He’s Not the Only One.” (4/22/16)
• Southwest Press Release

Discussion

These types of creative and humorous actions can be rather alluring, given their nature and their entertaining/amusing qualities, so we’re (typically) more likely to side with them. But, I’d like for us to take a step back and ask how they might be ineffective or problematic attempts at reform.

Source Material

Read:

• Debord, Guy. “Détournement as Negation and Prelude.” In Situationist International Anthology, edited and translated by Ken Knabb, 55-56. California: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981; free electronic version of entire anthology available here.
• Debord, Guy. “Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action.” In Situationist International Anthology, edited and translated by Ken Knabb, 17-25. California: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981; free electronic version of entire anthology available here.
• Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Ken Knabb. California: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2014; free electronic version available here.
• Jardin, Xeni. “The pepper-spraying cop gets Photoshop justice.” The Guardian, November 23, 2011. Accessed April 27, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/23/pepper-spraying-cop-photoshop-justice.
• Lessig, Lawrence. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. New York: Penguin Books, 2009.
• Schatz, Bryan. “This College Student Was Kicked Off a Flight Because He Speaks Arabic. He’s Not the Only One.” Mother Jones, April 22, 2016. Accessed April 23, 2016. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/iraq-refugee-airplane-southwest-arabic.

Listen:

• Girl Talk (free downloads here; Feed the Animals is particularly fun)

Watch:

• Pitch Perfect (2012)
• The Yes Men are Revolting (2014); currently free through Amazon Prime!

Websites to Skim:

• http://theyesmen.org/ (The Yes Men website; currently down as of 4/27/16)
• http://yeslab.org/ (Yes Lab website)

Quoted material under title image from "Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organization and Action" and The Society of the Spectacle (Thesis 207), respectively.