Mémoires ( Memories ) is an artist's book made by the French social critic Guy Debord in collaboration with the Danish artist Asger Jorn . Its last page mentions that it was printed in 1959, however, it was printed in December 1958. This publication is the second of two collaborative books by Jorn and Debord whilst they were both members of the Situationist International .
120-668: The book is a work of psychogeography , detailing a period in Debord's life when he was in the process of leaving the Lettrists , setting up Lettrism International, and showing his 'first masterpiece', Hurlements en Faveur de Sade ( Howling in Favour of Sade ), a film devoid of imagery that played white when people were talking on the soundtrack and black during the lengthy silences between. Credited to Guy-Ernest Debord, with structures portantes ('load-bearing structures') by Asger Jorn,
240-470: A " scorched earth " policy designed to reduce the power of the native rulers, the Dey , including massacres, mass rapes and other atrocities. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000, from approximately 3 million Algerians, were killed in the first three decades of the conquest. French losses from 1830 to 1851 were 3,336 killed in action and 92,329 dying in hospital. In 1834, Algeria became a French military colony. It
360-555: A New Urbanism"), established many of the concepts that would inform the development of psychogeography. Forwarding a theory of unitary urbanism , Chtcheglov wrote "Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams". Similarly, the Situationists found contemporary architecture both physically and ideologically restrictive, combining with outside cultural influence, effectively creating an undertow, and forcing oneself into
480-618: A central focus of these writers, utilising romantic , gothic , and occult ideas to describe and transform the city. Sinclair drew on this tradition combined with his own explorations as a way of criticising modern developments of urban space in the key text Lights Out for the Territory . Peter Ackroyd's bestselling London: A Biography was partially based on similar sources. Merlin Coverley gives prominence to this literary tradition in his book Psychogeography (2006). Coverley recognises
600-502: A certain system of interaction with their environment: "[C]ities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones". Following Chtcheglov's exclusion from the Lettrists in 1954, Guy Debord and others worked to clarify the concept of unitary urbanism, in a bid to demand a revolutionary approach to architecture. The Situationists' response
720-686: A choice already made in the sphere of production, and the consummate result of that choice. In form as in content the spectacle serves as total justification for the conditions and aims of the existing system.' Guy Debord Originally printed in an edition of 200 by Edition Bauhus Imaginiste in Copenhagen, Fin de Copenhague was reprinted by Éditions Allia in 2001 [2] . Mémoires was also printed in Copenhagen, in 1958, by Éditions Situationist International. It has been reprinted by Jean-Jacques Pauvert aux Belles Lettres in 1993, and by Éditions Allia in 2004. [3] Psychogeography Psychogeography
840-420: A city in an attempt to find its spirit. Détournement ('diversion' or 'disruption') is also employed in the book to disorient the reader by creating startling collaged juxtapositions. Originally deriving from Dada , détournement would become a key situationist strategy. The last page is an orange swirl, above which reads the single sentence 'I wanted to speak the beautiful language of my century.' The book
960-681: A contemporary psychogeography. Between 1992 and 1996 The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture undertook an extensive programme of practical research into classic (situationist) psychogeography in both Glasgow and London. The discoveries made during this period, documented in the group's journal Viscosity , expanded the terrain of the psychogeographic into that of urban design and architectural performance. Morag Rose has identified three dominant strands in contemporary psychogeography: literary, activist and creative. The journal Transgressions: A Journal of Urban Exploration (which appears to have ceased publication sometime in 2000) collated and developed
1080-633: A dissolved league, leading to Messali Hadj's 1937 founding of the Parti du peuple algérien (Algerian People's Party, PPA), which, no longer espoused full independence but only extensive autonomy. This new party was dissolved in 1939. Under Vichy France , the French State attempted to abrogate the Crémieux Decree to suppress the Jews' French citizenship, but the measure was never implemented. On
1200-400: A drunken afternoon collaging elements together. The next day they arrived at the printers with 32 collages, which were transferred to lithographic plates. Jorn then sat at the top of a ladder over the zinc plates, dropping cup after cup of Indian ink onto them. The plates were then etched and printed over the black texts and images. The cover was a heavily embossed image of an advertisement for
1320-784: A few months before had completed the liquidation of France's tete empire in Indochina , which set the tone of French policy for five years. He declared in the National Assembly, "One does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity and integrity of the Republic. The Algerian departments are part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French. ... Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession." At first, and despite
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#17327663003821440-450: A few places gave us a few intimations of the future powers of an architecture that it would be necessary to create in order to provide the setting for less mediocre games. Giving a quote that he attributed to Karl Marx , Debord says: People can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is animated. Obstacles were everywhere. And they were all interrelated, maintaining
1560-537: A formal policy-making body to synchronize the movement's political and military activities. The highest authority of the FLN was vested in the thirty-four member National Council of the Algerian Revolution (Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne, CNRA), within which the five-man Committee of Coordination and Enforcement ( Comité de Coordination et d'Exécution , CCE) formed the executive. The leadership of
1680-551: A frenzy of throat-cutting and disemboweling broke out among confused and suspicious FLN cadres, nationalist slaughtered nationalist from April to September 1957 and did France's work for her." But this type of operation involved individual operatives rather than organized covert units. One organized pseudo-guerrilla unit, however, was created in December 1956 by the French DST domestic intelligence agency. The Organization of
1800-530: A measure that few took since it involved renouncing the right to be governed by sharia law in personal matters and was widely considered to be apostasy . Its first article stipulated: The indigenous Muslim is French; however, he will continue to be subjected to Muslim law. He may be admitted to serve in the army (armée de terre) and the navy (armée de mer). He may be called to functions and civil employment in Algeria. He may, on his demand, be admitted to enjoy
1920-722: A member of the Communist Party and of its affiliated trade union, the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU), joined the following year. The North African Star broke from the Communist Party in 1928, before being dissolved in 1929 at Paris's demand. Amid growing discontent from the Algerian population, the Third Republic (1871–1940) acknowledged some demands, and the Popular Front initiated
2040-421: A more or less populous city, a more or less lively street. Build a house. Furnish it. Make the most of its decoration and surroundings. Choose the season and the time. Gather together the right people, the best records and drinks. Lighting and conversation must, of course, be appropriate, along with the weather and your memories. If your calculations are correct, you should find the outcome satisfying. (Please inform
2160-480: A number of post-avant-garde revolutionary psychogeographical themes. The journal also contributed to the use and development of psychogeographical maps which have, since 2000, been used in political actions, drifts and projections, distributed as flyers. Since 2003 in the United States , separate events known as Provflux and Psy-Geo-conflux have been dedicated to action-based participatory experiments, under
2280-449: A proper definition for the idea announced by Gil J. Wolman : "Unitary Urbanism - the synthesis of art and technology that we call for — must be constructed according to certain new values of life, values which now need to be distinguished and disseminated." It demanded the rejection of functional, Euclidean values in architecture , as well as the separation between art and its surroundings. The implication of combining these two negations
2400-409: A razor blade. The situationist concept of the spectacle runs through both books; represented by the newspapers and magazine collage elements, the collage and ink (détournement) used to disrupt the text represents a strategy to see the city as it really is, rather than as charted in maps and signposts. 'The spectacle epitomises the prevailing model of social life. It is the omnipresent celebration of
2520-668: A series of bloody, random massacres and bombings by Muslim Algerians in several towns and cities, the French Pieds-Noirs and urban French population began to demand that the French government engage in sterner countermeasures, including the proclamation of a state of emergency , capital punishment for political crimes, denunciation of all separatists, and most ominously, a call for 'tit-for-tat' reprisal operations by police, military, and para-military forces. Colon vigilante units, whose unauthorized activities were conducted with
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#17327663003822640-524: A significant part of the population of Algerians in France . The decision to capture Algiers was made by Charles X and his ministers in January 1830. An invasion had already been discussed in 1827 in part in reaction to Barbary pirates activities and their ransoming of Christian captives and slaves, and the refusal of Marseilles merchants to pay their debts to the Dey of Algiers. By early 1830 however,
2760-607: A strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. The " Café wars ", resulting in nearly 5,000 deaths, were waged in France between the two rebel groups throughout the years of the War of Independence. On the political front, the FLN worked to persuade—and to coerce—the Algerian masses to support the aims of the independence movement through contributions. FLN-influenced labor unions, professional associations, and students' and women's organizations were created to lead opinion in diverse segments of
2880-416: A unified reign of poverty. While a reading of the texts included in the journal Internationale Situationniste may lead to an understanding of psychogeography as dictated by Guy Debord, a more comprehensive elucidation of the term would come from research into those who have put its techniques into a more developed practise. While Debord's influence in bringing Chtchglov's text to an international audience
3000-426: A utopia where one was constantly exploring, free of determining factors. One of the first collaborations between Debord and Danish Asger Jorn is their screen printed Guide psychogéographique de Paris : discours sur les passions de l’armour (Psychogeographic Guide of Paris: 1957). Later they created The Naked City (psychogeographic map of Paris:1958), for which they cut apart a typical map of Paris and repositioned
3120-527: Is '[a]rguably the most high-profile British psychogeographer' and is credited with having a strong influence on the term's greater public use in the United Kingdom. Though Sinclair makes infrequent use of the jargon associated with the Situationists, he has certainly popularized the term by producing a large body of work based on pedestrian exploration of the urban and suburban landscape. Scholar Duncan Hay asserts that Sinclair's work does not represent
3240-588: Is credited to Asger Jorn, with Debord listed as "Technical Adviser in Détournement". Also printed by Permild and Rosengreen, Copenhagen , the book was published by Jorn's Edition Bauhaus Imaginiste in May 1957, a few months before this group amalgamated with the Lettrist International to create the Situationists. In many ways very similar to the later book, the colour layers are more exuberant,
3360-463: Is most famous for its cover, a dust jacket made of heavy-grade sandpaper . Usually credited to Debord, the sleeve was actually conceived in a conversation between Jorn and the printer, V.O. Permild: [Permild:] Long had [Jorn] asked me, if I couldn’t find an unconventional material for the book cover. Preferably some sticky asphalt or perhaps glass wool. Kiddingly, he wanted, that by looking at people, you should be able to tell whether or not they had had
3480-470: Is practised in a closed circle, it fades into a dream, becomes a mere image of itself. The ambiance of play is by nature unstable. At any moment, "ordinary life" may prevail once again. The geographical limitation of play is even more striking than its temporal limitation. Every game takes place within the boundaries of its own spatial domain. Moments later, Debord elaborates on the important goals of unitary urbanism in contemporary society: The atmosphere of
3600-461: Is printed with black ink, reproducing found text and graphics taken from newspapers and magazines. The second layer is printed using coloured inks, splashed across the pages. These sometimes connect images and text, sometimes cover them, and sometimes are seemingly unconnected. The black layer contains fragments of text, maps of Paris and London, illustrations of siege warfare, cheap reproductions of old masters and questions such as 'How do you feel about
3720-407: Is that by creating abstraction, one creates art, which, in turn, creates a point of distinction that unitary urbanism insists must be nullified. This confusion is also fundamental to the execution of unitary urbanism as it corrupts one's ability to identify where "function" ends and "play" (the "ludic") begins, resulting in what the Lettrist International and Situationist International believed to be
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3840-502: Is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International , which were revolutionary groups influenced by Marxist and anarchist theory as well as the attitudes and methods of Dadaists and Surrealists . In 1955, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as "the study of
3960-432: Is then covered with a second layer of coloured ink drops and drips, most of which go right to left, emphasising the direction of the book from beginning to end. The book ends with the text: Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Tell us in not more than 250 words why your girl is the sweetest girl in town. Having just arrived in Copenhagen, Jorn and Debord rushed into a newsagents, stole a huge amount of magazines and newspapers, and spent
4080-530: Is undoubted, his skill with the 'praxis' of unitary urbanism has been placed into question by almost all the subsequent protagonists of the Formulary's directives. Debord was indeed a notorious drunk (see his Panegyrique, Gallimard 1995) and this altered state of consciousness must be considered along with assertions he made regarding his attempts at psychogeographical activities such as dérive and constructed situation. The researches undertaken by WNLA, AAA and
4200-467: Is very clear. It is a completely typical drunken monologue…with its vain phrases that do not await response and its overbearing explanations. And its silences." "This apparently serious term 'psychogeography'", writes Debord biographer Vincent Kaufman, "comprises an art of conversation and drunkenness, and everything leads us to believe that Debord excelled at both." Before settling on the impossibility of true psychogeography, Debord made another film, On
4320-508: The Toussaint Rouge (Red All-Saints' Day ). From Cairo , the FLN broadcast the declaration of 1 November 1954 written by the journalist Mohamed Aïchaoui calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state – sovereign, democratic and social – within the framework of the principles of Islam." It was the reaction of Premier Pierre Mendès France ( Radical-Socialist Party ), who only
4440-623: The Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence ) was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war , it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between
4560-580: The Aurès , the Kabylie , and other mountainous areas around Constantine and south of Algiers and Oran . In these places, the FLN established a simple but effective—although frequently temporary—military administration that was able to collect taxes and food and to recruit manpower. But it was never able to hold large, fixed positions. The loss of competent field commanders both on the battlefield and through defections and political purges created difficulties for
4680-621: The Battle of the borders , the ALN failed to penetrate these defence lines. The French military command ruthlessly applied the principle of collective responsibility to villages suspected of sheltering, supplying, or in any way cooperating with the guerrillas. Villages that could not be reached by mobile units were subject to aerial bombardment. FLN guerrillas that fled to caves or other remote hiding places were tracked and hunted down. In one episode, FLN guerrillas who refused to surrender and withdraw from
4800-620: The Blum-Viollette proposal in 1936, which was supposed to enlighten the Indigenous Code by giving French citizenship to a small number of Muslims. The pieds-noirs (Algerians of European origin) violently demonstrated against it and the North African Party also opposed it, leading to its abandonment. The pro-independence party was dissolved in 1937, and its leaders were charged with the illegal reconstitution of
4920-540: The Constantine wilaya /region, however, decided a drastic escalation was needed. The killing by the FLN and its supporters of 123 people, including 71 French, including old women and babies, shocked Jacques Soustelle into calling for more repressive measures against the rebels. The French authorities stated that 1,273 guerrillas died in what Soustelle admitted were "severe" reprisals. The FLN subsequently claimed that 12,000 Muslims were killed. Soustelle's repression
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5040-544: The Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency. The brutality of the methods employed by the French forces failed to win hearts and minds in Algeria, alienated support in metropolitan France, and discredited French prestige abroad. As the war dragged on, the French public slowly turned against it and many of France's key allies, including the United States, switched from supporting France to abstaining in
5160-532: The Muslim community acceptable to the French through whom a compromise or reforms within the system might be achieved. As the FLN campaign of influence spread through the countryside, many European farmers in the interior (called Pieds-Noirs ), many of whom lived on lands taken from Muslim communities during the nineteenth century, sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers and other Algerian cities. After
5280-489: The Sétif massacre of 8 May 1945, and the pro-Independence struggle before World War II, most Algerians were in favor of a relative status-quo. While Messali Hadj had radicalized by forming the FLN, Ferhat Abbas maintained a more moderate, electoral strategy. Fewer than 500 fellaghas (pro-Independence fighters) could be counted at the beginning of the conflict. The Algerian population radicalized itself in particular because of
5400-791: The Vietnam War . The French also used napalm . The French army resumed an important role in local Algerian administration through the Special Administration Section ( Section Administrative Spécialisée , SAS), created in 1955. The SAS's mission was to establish contact with the Muslim population and weaken nationalist influence in the rural areas by asserting the "French presence" there. SAS officers—called képis bleus (blue caps)—also recruited and trained bands of loyal Muslim irregulars, known as harkis . Armed with shotguns and using guerrilla tactics similar to those of
5520-470: The 'beautiful language' of situationist urbanism necessitates its practice. Along with détournement , one of the main Situationist practices is the dérive ( French: [de.ʁiv] , "drift"). The dérive is a method of drifting through space to explore how the city is constructed, as well as how it makes us feel. Guy Debord defined the dérive as "a mode of experimental behavior linked to
5640-501: The 1990s, as situationist theory became popular in artistic and academic circles, avant-garde , neoist , and revolutionary groups emerged, developing psychogeographical praxis in various ways. Influenced primarily through the re-emergence of the London Psychogeographical Association and the foundation of The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture , these groups have assisted in the development of
5760-418: The ALN. France, which had just lost French Indochina , was determined not to lose the next colonial war, particularly in its oldest and nearest major colony, which was regarded as a part of Metropolitan France (rather than a colony), by French law. In the early morning hours of 1 November 1954, FLN maquisards (guerrillas) attacked military and civilian targets throughout Algeria in what became known as
5880-841: The Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) in 1946 and was elected as a deputy. Founded in 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) created an armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Army) to engage in an armed struggle against French authority. Many Algerian soldiers who served for the French Army in the First Indochina War had strong sympathy for the Vietnamese fighting against France and took up their experience to support
6000-517: The Algerian Manifesto (UDMA), the ulema , and the Algerian Communist Party (PCA) maintained a friendly neutrality toward the FLN. The communists , who had made no move to cooperate in the uprising at the start, later tried to infiltrate the FLN, but FLN leaders publicly repudiated the support of the party. In April 1956, Abbas flew to Cairo , where he formally joined the FLN. This action brought in many évolués who had supported
6120-527: The Algerian situation was out of control and that what was viewed officially as a pacification operation had developed into a war. By 1956, there were more than 400,000 French troops in Algeria. Although the elite airborne infantry units of the Troupes coloniales and the Foreign Legion bore the brunt of offensive counterinsurgency combat operations, approximately 170,000 Muslim Algerians also served in
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#17327663003826240-405: The FLN external political leaders arrested and imprisoned for the duration of the war. This action caused the remaining rebel leaders to harden their stance. France opposed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser 's material and political assistance to the FLN, which some French analysts believed was the revolution's main sustenance. This attitude was a factor in persuading France to participate in
6360-570: The FLN, but aimed to compete with that organisation. The Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), the military wing of the FLN, subsequently wiped out the MNA guerrilla operation in Algeria, and Messali Hadj's movement lost what weak influence it had had there. However, the MNA retained the support of many Algerian workers in France through the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algériens (the Union of Algerian Workers). The FLN also established
6480-488: The FLN, the harkis , who eventually numbered about 180,000 volunteers, more than the FLN activists, were an ideal instrument of counterinsurgency warfare. Harkis were mostly used in conventional formations, either in all-Algerian units commanded by French officers or in mixed units. Other uses included platoon or smaller size units, attached to French battalions, in a similar way as the Kit Carson Scouts by
6600-518: The FLN. Moreover, power struggles in the early years of the war split leadership in the wilayat, particularly in the Aurès. Some officers created their own fiefdoms, using units under their command to settle old scores and engage in private wars against military rivals within the FLN. Despite complaints from the military command in Algiers, the French government was reluctant for many months to admit that
6720-677: The French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counter-terrorists had as its mission to carry out false flag terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise. But it seemed that, as in Indochina, "the French focused on developing native guerrilla groups that would fight against the FLN", one of whom fought in the Southern Atlas Mountains , equipped by the French Army. The FLN also used pseudo-guerrilla strategies against
6840-469: The French Army on one occasion, with Force K, a group of 1,000 Algerians who volunteered to serve in Force K as guerrillas for the French. But most of these members were either already FLN members or were turned by the FLN once enlisted. Corpses of purported FLN members displayed by the unit were in fact those of dissidents and members of other Algerian groups killed by the FLN. The French Army finally discovered
6960-465: The French did not realize the seriousness of the challenge they faced until 1955, when the FLN moved into urbanized areas. An important watershed in the War of Independence was the massacre of Pieds-Noirs civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville (now known as Skikda ) in August 1955. Before this operation, FLN policy was to attack only military and government-related targets. The commander of
7080-484: The French electorate approved the Évian Accords. The final result was 91% in favor of the ratification of this agreement and on 1 July, the Accords were subject to a second referendum in Algeria, where 99.72% voted for independence and just 0.28% against. The planned French withdrawal led to a state crisis. This included various assassination attempts on de Gaulle as well as some attempts at military coups . Most of
7200-427: The French government to negotiate a cease-fire. In 1957, it became common knowledge in France that the French Army was routinely using torture to extract information from suspected FLN members. Hubert Beuve-Méry , the editor of Le Monde , declared in an edition on 13 March 1957: "From now on, Frenchman must know that they don't have the right to condemn in the same terms as ten years ago the destruction of Oradour and
7320-626: The French were disarmed and left behind, as the agreement between French and Algerian authorities declared that no actions could be taken against them. However, the Harkis in particular, having served as auxiliaries with the French army, were regarded as traitors and many were murdered [ fr ] by the FLN or by lynch mobs, often after being abducted and tortured. About 20,000 Harki families (around 90,000 people) managed to flee to France, some with help from their French officers acting against orders, and today they and their descendants form
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#17327663003827440-629: The London Psychogeographical Association during the 1990s support the contention of Asger Jorn and the Scandinavian Situationniste (Drakagygett 1962 - 1998) that the psychogeographical is a concept only known through practise of its techniques. Without undertaking the programme expounded by Chtchglov, and the resultant submission to the urban unknown, comprehension of the Formulary is not possible. As Debord himself suggested, an understanding of
7560-657: The November 1956 attempt to seize the Suez Canal during the Suez Crisis . During 1957, support for the FLN weakened as the breach between the internals and externals widened. To halt the drift, the FLN expanded its executive committee to include Abbas, as well as imprisoned political leaders such as Ben Bella. It also convinced communist and Arab members of the United Nations (UN) to put diplomatic pressure on
7680-512: The Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time (1959). The film's narrated content concerns itself with the evolution of a generally passive group of unnamed people into a fully aware, anarchistic assemblage, and might be perceived as a biography of the situationists themselves. Among the rants which construct the film (regarding art, ignorance, consumerism, militarism) is a desperate call for psychogeographic action: When freedom
7800-520: The U.S. in Vietnam. A third use was an intelligence gathering role, with some reported minor pseudo-operations in support of their intelligence collection. U.S. military expert Lawrence E. Cline stated, "The extent of these pseudo-operations appears to have been very limited both in time and scope. ... The most widespread use of pseudo type operations was during the 'Battle of Algiers' in 1957. The principal French employer of covert agents in Algiers
7920-545: The UDMA in the past. The AUMA also threw the full weight of its prestige behind the FLN. Bendjelloul and the pro-integrationist moderates had already abandoned their efforts to mediate between the French and the rebels. After the collapse of the MTLD , the veteran nationalist Messali Hadj formed the leftist Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which advocated a policy of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of
8040-599: The UN debate on Algeria. After major demonstrations in Algiers and several other cities in favor of independence (1960) and a United Nations resolution recognizing the right to independence, Charles de Gaulle , the first president of the Fifth Republic, decided to open a series of negotiations with the FLN. These concluded with the signing of the Évian Accords in March 1962. A referendum took place on 8 April 1962 and
8160-544: The academic umbrella of psychogeography. An article on the second annual Psy-Geo-conflux described psychogeography as "a slightly stuffy term that's been applied to a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities." Psychogeography also became a device used in literature . In Britain in particular, psychogeography has become a recognised descriptive term used in discussion of successful writers such as Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd . Sinclair
8280-570: The actual physical constructions. Debord's vision was a combination of the two realms of opposing ambiance, where the play of the soft ambiance was actively considered in the rendering of the hard. The new space creates a possibility for activity not formerly determined by one besides the individual. At a conference in Cosio di Arroscia, Italy in 1956, the Lettrists joined the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus to set
8400-432: The attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities. The dérive 's goals include studying the terrain of the city (psychogeography) and emotional disorientation, both of which lead to the potential creation of Situations . Since
8520-416: The book contains 64 pages divided into three sections. The first section is called 'June 1952', and starts with a quote from Marx : Let the dead bury the dead, and mourn them.... our fate will be to become the first living people to enter the new life. The second section, 'December 1952', quotes Huizinga , and the third, 'September 1953', quotes Soubise . The work contains two separate layers. The first
8640-399: The book in their hands. He acquiesced by my final suggestion: sandpaper (flint) nr. 2: ‘Fine. Can you imagine the result when the book lies on a blank polished mahogany table, or when it's inserted or taken out of the bookshelf. It planes shavings off the neighbour's desert goat. Fin de Copenhague ( Goodbye to Copenhagen ) is the first collaboration between the two artists. The artists' book
8760-472: The city and to find and eliminate terrorists. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and, in the succeeding months, destroyed the FLN infrastructure in Algiers. But the FLN had succeeded in showing its ability to strike at the heart of French Algeria and to assemble a mass response to its demands among urban Muslims. The publicity given to the brutal methods used by the army to win the Battle of Algiers, including
8880-456: The conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances." He gave a fuller explanation in "Theory of the Dérive" (1956), first written as a member of the Letterist International : In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by
9000-536: The conflict. A major success was the conversion of Jacques Soustelle , who went to Algeria as governor general in January 1955 determined to restore peace. Soustelle, a one-time leftist and by 1955 an ardent Gaullist, began an ambitious reform program (the Soustelle Plan ) aimed at improving economic conditions among the Muslim population. The FLN adopted tactics similar to those of nationalist groups in Asia, and
9120-411: The custody of the French Army led to the case becoming a cause célèbre as his widow aided by the historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet determinedly sought to have the men responsible for her husband's death prosecuted. Existentialist writer, philosopher and playwright Albert Camus , native of Algiers, tried unsuccessfully to persuade both sides to at least leave civilians alone, writing editorials against
9240-490: The desire for independence or, at the very least, autonomy and self-rule . Within that context, Khalid ibn Hashim , a grandson of Abd el-Kadir , spearheaded the resistance against the French in the first half of the 20th century and was a member of the directing committee of the French Communist Party . In 1926, he founded the Étoile Nord-Africaine ("North African Star"), to which Messali Hadj , also
9360-533: The different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria , with repercussions in metropolitan France . Effectively started by members of the FLN on 1 November 1954, during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day "), the conflict led to serious political crises in France, causing the fall of the Fourth Republic (1946–58), to be replaced by
9480-566: The editors of the results.) The Lettrists' reimagining of the city has its precursors in aspects of Dadaism and Surrealism. The concept of the flâneur is also cited as an influence on the development of psychogeography. Widely credited to Charles Baudelaire , who was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Man of the Crowd", it was further developed theoretically by Walter Benjamin . Ivan Chtcheglov , in his highly influential 1953 essay "Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau" ("Formulary for
9600-453: The fate of "urban relativity". Debord readily admits in his 1961 film A Critique of Separation , "The sectors of a city…are decipherable, but the personal meaning they have for us is incommunicable, as is the secrecy of private life in general, regarding which we possess nothing but pitiful documents". Despite the ambiguity of the theory, Debord committed himself firmly to its practical basis in reality, even as he later confesses, "none of this
9720-411: The fifth read: "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined." Some Algerian intellectuals, dubbed oulémas , began to nurture
9840-513: The former were carried out by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), an underground organization formed mainly from French military personnel supporting a French Algeria, which committed a large number of bombings and murders both in Algeria and in the homeland to stop the planned independence. The war caused the deaths of between 400,000 and 1.5 million Algerians, 25,600 French soldiers, and 6,000 Europeans. War crimes committed during
9960-402: The idea are Walter Benjamin , J. G. Ballard , and Nicholas Hawksmoor . Part of this development saw increasing use of ideas and terminology by some psychogeographers from Fortean and occult areas including earth mysteries , ley lines and chaos magic , a course pioneered by Sinclair. A core element in virtually all these developments remains a dissatisfaction with the nature and design of
10080-565: The instances of FLN terrorism but tied down a large number of troops in static defense. Salan also constructed a heavily patrolled system of barriers to limit infiltration from Tunisia and Morocco. The best known of these was the Morice Line (named for the French defense minister, André Morice ), which consisted of an electrified fence, barbed wire, and mines over a 320-kilometer stretch of the Tunisian border. Despite ruthless clashes during
10200-481: The modern environment, and a desire to make the everyday world more interesting. Aleksandar Janicijevic , the initiator of the Urban Squares Initiative, defined psychogeography for the group in the following terms: "The subjective analysis–mental reaction, to neighbourhood behaviours related to geographic location. A chronological process based on the order of appearance of observed topics, with
10320-580: The national broadsheet The Independent . The column, which started out in the British Airways inflight magazine , ran in The Independent until October 2008. Sinclair and similar thinkers draw on a longstanding British literary tradition of the exploration of urban landscapes, predating the Situationists, found in the work of writers William Blake , Arthur Machen , and Thomas de Quincey . The nature and history of London were
10440-424: The new Industrial Revolution which will supply our every need, easily . . . quickly . . . cheaply . . . abundantly. Other pages include text in French, German, and Danish; illustrations of whisky bottles beer bottles and cigarettes; aeroplanes and oceangoing liners; cartoons of well dressed men and pretty girls and various maps of Copenhagen. One page declares, 'There's No Whiteness....Viva Free Algeria !' Each page
10560-481: The official thesis of an ordinary accident (a quick open-and-shut case) left more than a few observers doubtful. His widow claimed that Camus, though discreet, was in fact an ardent supporter of French Algeria in the last years of his life. To increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle, the FLN decided to bring the conflict to the cities and to call a nationwide general strike and also to plant bombs in public places. The most notable instance
10680-611: The other hand, the nationalist leader Ferhat Abbas founded the Algerian Popular Union ( Union populaire algérienne ) in 1938. In 1943, Abbas wrote the Algerian People's Manifesto ( Manifeste du peuple algérien ). Arrested after the Sétif and Guelma massacre of May 8, 1945, when the French Army and pieds-noirs mobs killed between 6,000 and 30,000 Algerians, Abbas founded the Democratic Union of
10800-478: The passive cooperation of police authorities, carried out ratonnades (literally, rat-hunts , raton being a racist term for denigrating Muslim Algerians) against suspected FLN members of the Muslim community. By 1955, effective political action groups within the Algerian colonial community succeeded in convincing many of the Governors General sent by Paris that the military was not the way to resolve
10920-453: The pieces. The resulting map corresponded with parts of Paris that were ‘stimulating’ and “worthy of study and preservation”; they then drew red arrows between these parts of the city to represent the fastest and most direct connections from one place to another, preferably made by taxi, as it was seen as the most independent and free way to travel through the city as opposed to buses. Eventually, Debord and Asger Jorn resigned themselves to
11040-406: The population, but here too, violent coercion was widely used. Frantz Fanon , a psychiatrist from Martinique who became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national liberation. From Cairo , Ahmed Ben Bella ordered the liquidation of potential interlocuteurs valables , those independent representatives of
11160-426: The precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." One of the key tactics for exploring psychogeography is the loosely defined urban walking practice known as the dérive . As a practice and theory, psychogeography has influenced a broad set of cultural actors, including artists, activists and academics. Psychogeography
11280-517: The real motive was to distract and assuage with a foreign conquest French opinion hostile to the increasingly authoritarian king. On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French attacked and captured Algiers in June 1830. In following years the conquest spread to the interior. Directed by Marshall Bugeaud , who became the first Governor-General of Algeria , the conquest was violent and marked by
11400-554: The regular FLN forces based in Tunisia and Morocco ("externals"), including Ben Bella, knew the conference was taking place but by chance or design on the part of the "internals" were unable to attend. In October 1956, the French Air Force intercepted a Moroccan DC-3 plane bound for Tunis , carrying Ahmed Ben Bella , Mohammed Boudiaf , Mohamed Khider and Hocine Aït Ahmed , and forced it to land in Algiers. Lacoste had
11520-418: The regular French army, most of them volunteers. France also sent air force and naval units to the Algerian theater, including helicopters. In addition to service as a flying ambulance and cargo carrier, French forces utilized the helicopter for the first time in a ground attack role in order to pursue and destroy fleeing FLN guerrilla units. The American military later used the same helicopter combat methods in
11640-538: The rights of a French citizen; in this case, he is subjected to the political and civil laws of France. Prior to 1870, fewer than 200 demands were registered by Muslims and 152 by Jewish Algerians. The 1865 decree was then modified by the 1870 Crémieux Decree , which granted French nationality to Jews living in one of the three Algerian departments. In 1881, the Code de l'Indigénat made the discrimination official by creating specific penalties for indigènes and organising
11760-487: The seizure or appropriation of their lands. After World War II , equality of rights was proclaimed by the ordonnance of 7 March 1944 and later confirmed by the loi Lamine Guèye of 7 May 1946, which granted French citizenship to all subjects of France's territories and overseas departments, and by the 1946 Constitution. The Law of 20 September 1947 granted French citizenship to all Algerian subjects, who were not required to renounce their Muslim personal status. Algeria
11880-573: The situationist origins of psychogeographic practice are sometimes overshadowed by literary traditions, but that they had a shared tradition through writers like Edgar Allan Poe , Daniel Defoe , and Charles Baudelaire. The documentaries of filmmaker Patrick Keiller are also considered to be an example of psychogeography. The concepts and themes seen in the popular comics' writer Alan Moore in From Hell are also now seen as significant works of psychogeography. Other key figures in this version of
12000-540: The terrorist acts of French-sponsored Main Rouge (Red Hand) group, which targeted anti-colonialists in all of the Maghreb region (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria), killing, for example, Tunisian activist Farhat Hached in 1952. The FLN uprising presented nationalist groups with the question of whether to adopt armed revolt as the main course of action. During the first year of the war, Ferhat Abbas 's Democratic Union of
12120-480: The text more pointed. One page, for instance, asks in English: What do you want? Better and cheaper food? Lots of new clothes? A dream home with all the latest comforts and labour saving devices? A new car . . . a motor launch . . . a light aircraft of your own? Whatever you want, it's coming your way - plus greater leisure for enjoying it all. With electronics, automation and nuclear energy, we are entering on
12240-992: The time delayed inclusion of other relevant instances". In 2013 Aleksandar Janicijevic published "Urbis – Language of the urban fabric" as a visual attempt to rediscover lost or neglected urban symbols. In 2015 another book was published, "MyPsychogeography", an attempt to synthesize sketches and ideas which have informed his art practice. Psychogeography is practiced both experimentally and formally in groups or associations, which sometimes consist of just one member. Known groups, some of whom are still operating, include: A number of applications have been made for mobile devices to facilitate dérives: Algerian War ~1,500,000 total Algerian deaths (Algerian historians' estimate) ~1,000,000 total Algerian deaths (Horne's estimate) ~400,000 total deaths (French historians' estimate) 1960s French Algeria (19th–20th centuries) Algerian War (1954–1962) 1990s– 2000s 2010s to present The Algerian War (also known as
12360-536: The torture by the Gestapo ." Another case that attracted much media attention was the murder of Maurice Audin , a member of the outlawed Algerian Communist party, mathematics professor at the University of Algiers and a suspected FLN member whom the French Army arrested in June 1957. Audin was tortured and killed and his body was never found. As Audin was French rather than Algerian, his "disappearance" while in
12480-570: The use of torture in Combat newspaper. The FLN considered him a fool, and some Pieds-Noirs considered him a traitor. Nevertheless, in his speech when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature , Camus said that when faced with a radical choice he would eventually support his community. This statement made him lose his status among left-wing intellectuals; when he died in 1960 in a car crash,
12600-440: The use of torture, strong movement control and curfew called quadrillage and where all authority was under the military, created doubt in France about its role in Algeria. What was originally " pacification " or a "public order operation" had turned into a colonial war accompanied by torture. During 1956 and 1957, the FLN successfully applied hit-and-run tactics in accordance with guerrilla warfare theory. Whilst some of this
12720-540: The utopian and revolutionary foundations of Situationist practice, and instead 'finds its expression as a literary mode, a position that would have appeared paradoxical to its original practitioners'. Sinclair has distanced himself from the term, declaring it a 'very nasty set of branding'. Will Self also contributed to the popularisation of the term in Great Britain through a column in the Saturday magazine of
12840-476: The war included massacres of civilians, rape, and torture ; the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps . Upon independence in 1962, 900,000 European-Algerians ( Pieds-noirs ) fled to France within a few months for fear of the FLN's revenge. The French government was unprepared to receive such a vast number of refugees, which caused turmoil in France. The majority of Algerian Muslims who had worked for
12960-467: The war ruse and tried to hunt down Force K members. However, some 600 managed to escape and join the FLN with weapons and equipment. Late in 1957, General Raoul Salan , commanding the French Army in Algeria, instituted a system of quadrillage (surveillance using a grid pattern), dividing the country into sectors, each permanently garrisoned by troops responsible for suppressing rebel operations in their assigned territory. Salan's methods sharply reduced
13080-453: The work of his administration, and he undertook the rule of Algeria by decree. He favored stepping up French military operations and granted the army exceptional police powers—a concession of dubious legality under French law—to deal with the mounting political violence. At the same time, Lacoste proposed a new administrative structure to give Algeria some autonomy and a decentralized government. Whilst remaining an integral part of France, Algeria
13200-434: The world at the moment, Sir?' The coloured layer contains freefloating ink splashes, lines created by a matchstick loaded in ink, and a Rorschach inkblob. Other pages deal with more personal themes, including a cartoon of the first showing of his film Hurlements en Faveur de Sade , with comments for and against, and references to Dérive , which would become known as Situationist Drift, the habit of walking aimlessly through
13320-562: Was aimed at military targets, a significant amount was invested in a terror campaign against those in any way deemed to support or encourage French authority. This resulted in acts of sadistic torture and brutal violence against all, including women and children. Specializing in ambushes and night raids and avoiding direct contact with superior French firepower, the internal forces targeted army patrols, military encampments, police posts, and colonial farms, mines, and factories, as well as transportation and communications facilities. Once an engagement
13440-498: Was an early cause of the Algerian population's rallying to the FLN. After Philippeville, Soustelle declared sterner measures and an all-out war began. In 1956, demonstrations by French Algerians caused the French government to not make reforms. Soustelle's successor, Governor General Robert Lacoste , a socialist, abolished the Algerian Assembly . Lacoste saw the assembly, which was dominated by pieds-noirs , as hindering
13560-417: Was broken off, the guerrillas merged with the population in the countryside, in accordance with Mao's theories. Although successfully provoking fear and uncertainty within both communities in Algeria, the revolutionaries' coercive tactics suggested that they had not yet inspired the bulk of the Muslim people to revolt against French colonial rule. Gradually, however, the FLN gained control in certain sectors of
13680-626: Was declared by the Constitution of 1848 to be an integral part of France and was divided into three departments : Alger , Oran and Constantine . Many French and other Europeans (Spanish, Italians, Maltese and others) later settled in Algeria. Under the Second Empire (1852–1871), the Code de l'indigénat (Indigenous Code) was implemented by the sénatus-consulte of 14 July 1865. It allowed Muslims to apply for full French citizenship,
13800-605: Was originally developed by the Letterist International 'around the summer of 1953'. Debord describes psychogeography as 'charmingly vague' and emphasises the importance of practice in psychogeographical explorations. The first published discussion of psychogeography was in the Lettrist journal Potlatch (1954), which included a 'Psychogeographical Game of the Week': Depending on what you are after, choose an area,
13920-463: Was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1956, when three women, including Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif , simultaneously placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France . The FLN carried out shootings and bombings in the spring of 1957, resulting in civilian casualties and a crushing response from the authorities. General Jacques Massu was instructed to use whatever methods deemed necessary to restore order in
14040-578: Was the Fifth Bureau, the psychological warfare branch. "The Fifth Bureau" made extensive use of 'turned' FLN members, one such network being run by Captain Paul-Alain Leger of the 10th Paras. " Persuaded " to work for the French forces included by the use of torture and threats against their family; these agents "mingled with FLN cadres. They planted incriminating forged documents, spread false rumors of treachery and fomented distrust. ... As
14160-476: Was to be divided into five districts, each of which would have a territorial assembly elected from a single slate of candidates. Until 1958, deputies representing Algerian districts were able to delay the passage of the measure by the National Assembly of France . In August and September 1956, the leadership of the FLN guerrillas operating within Algeria (popularly known as "internals") met to organize
14280-400: Was to create designs of new urbanized space, promising better opportunities for experimenting through mundane expression. Their intentions remained completely as abstractions. Guy Debord's truest intention was to unify two different factors of "ambiance" that, he felt, determined the values of the urban landscape: the soft ambiance — light, sound, time, the association of ideas — with the hard,
14400-560: Was unique to France because unlike all other overseas possessions acquired by France during the 19th century, Algeria was considered and legally classified to be an integral part of France. Both Muslim and European Algerians took part in World War II and fought for France. Algerian Muslims served as tirailleurs (such regiments were created as early as 1842 ) and spahis ; and French settlers as Zouaves or Chasseurs d'Afrique . US President Woodrow Wilson 's 1918 Fourteen Points had
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