Observers of the Everyday:Benjamin, Debord, Perec

Social Analysis of Urban Everyday LifeMeeting 1 (January 23, 2014)

Nikita Kharlamov, AAU

What is Everyday Life?

• Exercise: How can you encounter…- social class and social structure- global economy and corporate business- ethnic culture and conflict- virtual communication- urban redevelopment

First Encounter withHenri Lefebvre (1901-1991)

Lefebvre: The Idea of ‘Everydayness’

“The everyday can... be defined as a set of functions which connect and join together systems that might appear to be distinct... the concept of everydayness does not... designate a system, but rather a denominator common to existing systems including judicial, contractual, pedagogical, fiscal, and police systems” (Lefebvre, The everyday and everydayness, 1987, p. 9)

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)

Benjamin: Observations of Urbanism

• The Arcades Project (pub. 1982)• An exploration of the culture of ‘flanerie’ in

19-century Paris – idling and people-watching, leisure strolling through the public space of newly-arrived urban modernity

• NB: Think of the ‘flaneur’ as you read Simmel for next class!

Paris: A Rainy Day(Gustave Caillebotte, 1877)

Guy Debord (1931-1994)

Debord: Psychogeography

• Psychogeography as a revolutionary practice of creative urbanism.

• “The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals” (Debord, 1955 – in K. Knabb, Situationist International Anthology, 2006, p. 8)

• Derive: The artistic/performative practice of ‘drifting’ through urban environment

Georges Perec (1936-1982)

Perec: Infraordinary

• “That which is generally not taken note of, that which is not noticed, that which has no importance: what happens when nothing happens other than the weather, people, cars, and clouds” (Perec, An attempt at exhausting a place in Paris, 1975/2010, p. 3)

• Meticulous, exhausting, over-saturated descriptions of everyday urban settings

Photography as Means ofAccessing the Everyday

• For each class: Prepare 3-6 photographs of Moscow and be ready to discuss them, using our ideas in class as themes

• What do you see? What does it mean? How did it get there? Who placed it there? What larger social / psychological / economic / political / cultural phenomenon does it reflect?

• (If unsure what to do: Read Jerry Krase’s ‘Introduction’, assigned for Topic 6)