Détournement  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 06:53, 6 November 2007; view current revision
←Older revision | Newer revision→
Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

In détournement, an artist reuses elements of well-known media to create a new work with a different message, often one opposed to the original. The term "détournement", borrowed from the French, originated with the Situationist International; a similar term more familiar to English speakers would be "turnabout" or "derailment", although these terms are not used in academia and the arts world as they are inherently 'anti-art' as they are often blatant theft and sabotage of existing elements.

Detournement is similar to satirical parody, but employs more direct reuse or faithful mimicry of the original works rather than constructing a new work which merely alludes strongly to the original. It may be contrasted with recuperation, in which originally subversive works and ideas are themselves appropriated by mainstream media.

Detournement's use by Barbara Kruger familiarised many with the technique, and it was extensively and effectively used as part of the early HIV/AIDS activism of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Examples of contemporary detournement include Adbusters' "subvertisements" and other instances of culture jamming.

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Détournement" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools