Observers of the Everyday:
Benjamin, Debord, Perec
Social Analysis of Urban Everyday Life
Meeting 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 with
Henri 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 of
Accessing 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)