@article{intel:/content/journals/10.1386/pop.5.1.19_1, author = "Stob, Jennifer", title = "Détournement as optic: Debord, derisory documents and the aerial view", journal= "Philosophy of Photography", year = "2014", volume = "5", number = "1", pages = "19-34", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1386/pop.5.1.19_1", url = "https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/pop.5.1.19_1", publisher = "Intellect", issn = "2040-3690", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "Guy Debord", keywords = "derisory documents", keywords = "aerial view", keywords = "aerial photography", keywords = "Détournement", keywords = "Situationist International", abstract = "Abstract For Situationist, theorist and film-maker Guy Debord, the aerial view reproduced the falsely objective world-view he called ‘the spectacle’. To counter its myth of an infinitely expandable, omniscient perspective, Debord focused on reducing views from above to ‘derisory documents’ of the social and the environmental through détournement in the two films he made while the Situationist International was in existence. The films engage critically with aerial photography as a hegemonic mode of indexical media, with the aerial view’s application as information image and ornament, and with the formal phenomenon of ciné-mapping. This analysis suggests that the détournement Debord performs in and across these films can be best conceptualized as a critical optic that constitutes a practice of seeing, a mode of reception and a call to action in the social space beyond its aesthetic employ. As such, the optic of détournement is the contestational counterpart to the optic of the aerial view. This remains the case despite the contemporary complexity of photographic views from above and their increased abstraction of social agents and spaces. An alternative to the testimonial function of embodied photographic views, détournement as optic represents an indexical civil contract founded upon representational inadequacy.", }