Skip to Content Skip to Search Go to Top Navigation Go to Side Menu


"situations" Tag


I have repeated it a 1000 times


Wednesday, April 5, 2017

 
I met him. I ordered a coffee, thee and beer. He only drank thee. I was probably to enthusiastic.
‘Now you have had everything’, he said. He had sweet eyes that looked shy to me. Charming almost. Most.
‘I never really like to meet people’. We laughed, we just met.
‘No I mean, now it has a purpose, so I know what to do, what to expect. But when I meet with friends it does not have a purpose. It really stress me out. I cannot focus on anything the day before I am going to meet with someone. All I think about is that meeting, so now I kind off stopped meeting my friends, I only see good friends’.
I was confused I laughed.

This remark of him kept coming back in my head and a few days later I realized that I had the same. Not as present as he had it, but still. The appointment keeps repeating itself in my thoughts, I have run through everything that could happen.

No surprises.

What if I could create something to protect us? Something that would keep the stress out. What made me actually stressed? There were three things I could think about that really, really stresses me out: New Things, Being in a Hurry and Ajax.

 

bed

 
New Things because I do not know what is going to happen, and so I do not know how to react and what to expect.

I have a respond to every situation that could interest me.
But I know that it is a bit useless to thing about everything that could happen, because the people I am with will not respond the way they do in my mind and they are also not as busy with me as I am.

 

bord

 
Being in a Hurry stresses me out because I always think that the consequences will be huge and not repairable. It also makes me frustrated because I know what to do to be in time, but then when I am late it turned out that I did not follow my own schedule.

Surprises are unthinkable.

It was the first time that week that I was on time. I could not be late when I was going to meet him. Nervous. Checking my Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and back. He did not know what I look like. O wait maybe he checked my profile. Would he?

 

ajax stress proposal image

 
Ajax stresses me out because I love that club so much.
And I have zero influence on their success. The only thing I can do is wear a lot of Ajax merchandise.
When they play I have the feeling that my throat is a bit squeezed together, a goal is made quickly you know. At the end of the season I have this squeezed throat basically the whole time, and when they win, all the stress is replaced by an amazing joy.

I read an article about students who wore a Superman shirt, those students thought that they where more capable then they actually where.
I took this idea of clothes that make you think you are stronger as a starting point.
What if I could wear a stress protection?

New Things, how could you possibly protect yourself from it? You cannot. You can surrender yourself and observe it. How could I observe the New Things that happen to me? From an old belt I made a camera holder which I can wear around my shoulder to the other side of my flank. By always carrying my camera with me, I can observe situations when they stress me out to much, I can ‘hide behind the camera’. When you take photographs of a situation you immediately create a distance between yourself and the rest. You watch Them.

In my mind social situations, are more interesting than they most of the time will be in real life.
But, when a situation in real life ís interesting, it is exceeding. It are those moments when I learn the most.

 

ajax voorkant houder

ajax achterkant

 
For Being in a Hurry I wanted to use the  idea of the Superman-shirt even more. I wanted to create my own Superman-shirt, which protect me.
When I am in a hurry, I am most of the time by bike. So I am outside. A sweater is perfect for Dutch weather, most of the times it is kind of cold. On the sweater I attached patches of racing cars, one even with ‘Winner’ on it. This is on my back. On the front of the sweater I attached a rose, so I could, maybe, have the feeling that I am this very cool biker boy.

For my stress factor Ajax I wanted to create my own merchandise, as a way of showing my love, surrounding myself with ‘Ajax’ and hopefully send some positive vibes to the players.
From an old Ajax-short I made a shoulder or fanny pack, that I can easily wear.

Surprise Suprise, come to me.

I can prepare every situation in my head, but I cannot know how it will actually go. It are the situations when I am not aware that it is a situation that are crucial.
Without him I would not have known all this about myself. Or at least I would not have thought about it so much. His shy looking eyes make more sense now. His charming look makes me curious to him, but I know that it is not likely that we see each other soon.

 

1 sweater detail

                                    

thumb_IMG_2949_1024

 

THE SITUATIONIST DILEMMA


Sunday, October 23, 2016

 

Competitive notions in interpreting the concepts of situationism are creating a dilemma. This dilemma signifies friction between the concept and its use in daily life. 

 

Firstly I should say that situationism and the Situationist International had been created in a different world/time than the one I live in. The concept of freedom and play as stated in many of their ideas, resemble an assembly of philosophical and empiric references that are mine, but experienced in a different context. This leads to a reinterpretation of freedom and play connected to the world I live in now.

 

INDIVIDUAL VERSUS GROUP 

Situationist ideas about psychogeography (dérive) and unitary urbanism clarify the concept of living in situations, freedom and play vividly. People wander through different urban areas. Having their individual feelings lead them while being directly influenced by their surroundings. An idea of exploring and living in a landscape existing of unplanned surprises.

 

So far, this concept might sound clear, but a paradox can be found in many of their statements.

On the one hand a person should be strongly attached to his/her own feelings/emotions/senses (individualism), but on the other hand a capitalist/materialist individualism is condemned. This states an interesting way of thinking. Complex by all means.

The word of subject in the sentence above is ‘individualism’, but in my vision on the main situationist theory (a radical aversion for ideas and practices of the powers that were), are ‘individualism’ and ‘collectivism’ interchangeable. The notion of the individual and the group as being a unity and at the same time fragmenting this collectiveness, is such a tough contradiction. This makes situationist theories approachable in many ways, but inapproachable in even more.

 

The radical, anti-capitalist ideas of the situationists can be very effective in extreme, collective confrontation (i.e. revolts, revolutions, marches, strikes). Meanwhile, the individual in daily life, loses strength.

An individual that constructs situations, will be living in a different situation than another individual, although their situations could overlay and complicates such an (already) unclear starting point. A situation defined for yourself, might complicate the practice of freedom and play in a cohesive, social setting.

Freedom and play should be incorporated in situations and life in general, but these terms are uncertain in ongoing effect and consequence.

 

EXTERNAL VERSUS INTRINSIC 

The situationist notion of the spectacle (materialist/capitalist vision on life as a narrow-minded, superficial one) still divides and unites people in their daily patterns nowadays. Although the spectacle reshapes itself continuously towards more flexible definitions.

 

Primary, intrinsic and united similarities are what makes us homo sapiens. The by the situationists admired concept of the homo ludens unites us too. This adventurous person at play is inside all of us. Still few people are able to fully express this as described in a situationist’s observation.

External influences, as the spectacle, restrict us human beings to be limitless in freedom and play. But also, in my point of view, originates an important part from within people themselves. External information (cultural, traditional) is necessary to reinterpret in an individual context. Therefore freedom is needed. Next to these external factors, a variety of embedded instincts and needs (biological, genetic) are prematurely existing. To approach these in a constantly free and playful way is beautifully stated, but in my conception naive, since we are  being born in an already populated world where centuries of ever transforming, created structures aren’t all based on (solely) money and power.

 

UTOPIA VERSUS REALITY

These situationist ideas, created and admired by artists and other people with interest and knowledge in arts, literature, philosophy and/or politics, is not made for, nor to be understood by many others. Capitalists nor communists (and many more who fill this gap).

A situationist world is a utopia. The importance of the unstructured, emotional drifts, guiding every person individually, is un-realizable.

Influence through morals, religions and politics have always been a limitation for protesters. But structure can be found in all ideas  about life. Structure requires limits. Also, a construction of situations.

 

Read more :

The Concept of Détournement

the pleasure of the unknown

 


Log in
subscribe