Thursday, February 10, 2005

Social Security Detournement

A litte detourned "time passing" for me with a few old Social Security Posters:

2042 Social Security Poster
2042 Social Security Poster


You Will Die
You Will Die


More original Social Security Posters can be found at: http://www.ssa.gov/history/pubaffairs.html

And for those who have asked, here is a nice definition:

Detournement; "short for: detournement of pre-existing aesthetic elements. The integration of past or present artistic production into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no Situationist painting or music, but only a Situationist use of these means.", Internationale Situationiste issue 1, June 1958.

Detournement may be understood as the opposite of 'recuperation', the process by which radical ideas and images are commodified and incorporated within the 'safe' confines of 'spectacular' society. With detournement, images produced by the spectacle are altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning is changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositionist message.

- From http://www.answers.com/detournement&r=67

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