Photomontages were first created to create a new, fresh and different presentation of photographs. Since the conventional style was becoming too boring and typical. A photomontage is made by chopping up photographs and then composing them together again in different manners. During the time that the concept of photomontage was first created, the world was going through the war, big revolutions and large political struggles. This concept became an outcome of all of this commotion.

The montages exuded the chaos of the war age and showed the negative sides of the revolution as well. It was always very unique and each photomontage would show the many strange and different views. In result, many different concepts were thought of. An example was the concept of juxtaposing photographic banalities.

Chance: A chance is the same as a possibility. It means that something can happen and there’s a probability. A chance can also be accidental, it’s very much based upon opportunity.

Change: Change is all about the difference. It could relate to the public’s changing reactions. For example, if someone has a sad expression and then becomes cheerful and happy.

Challenge: A challenge relates to taking part in something, it also is similar to a test. You must demonstrate your abilities and provoke an outcome.

Tom Pope’s work has been majorly influenced by this theory. Physco-geography is a physiological concept which applies to Geograophy. It’s very spontanous and different. The people who did group that created this were called “Situationist International” and they wanted to go against the rules of society which are placed upon them. They were very radical and wanted to create some awareness. Their ideas pushed the envelope, as they changed daily things into much more interesting creations.

‘ Derive’ is a French word meaning an unplanned journey through somewhere.

This is all about being random, and letting your environment guide you. For example, you can use this technique of Derive to guide you through somewhere.

Whilst Tom Pope was here, he enlightened us about his personal influences. He stated that he was guided by the situationism movement and used it in his photography. He allows himself to be lead by his surroundings and let that guide him.

Definition:

This psycological theory suggests that our behavioral changes depend on the situation  that we’re in. Therefore, it implies that the environment may have control over our feelings and emotions. It isn’t concerned with personal opinions, personalities and ideologies. It also disregards any sort of innate thoughts.

For example, if you visit a park, you may be drawn to the aesthetically beautiful qualities in it. This is because, as a photographer, you may have trained yourself to only photograph the best things. Whereas, situationism allows you to expand this view and help you to try and explore something less ordinary. Likewise if you are in an unknown scenario and you feel uncomfortable, your behavior may be impacted.

Experiment:

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted, to test the theory of Situationism. In this study, everyday people where selected to participate in hopes of proving the theory. They were instructed to act like ‘guards’. The remaining participants were assigned the ‘prisoners’ role. It was noted that the ‘guards’ began to adopt a stereotypical behavior. They were acting in a more aggressive and disciplinary fashion towards the ‘prisoners’. This shows that they may have based their mood on their roles and the fact that their in a prison building. Therefore, this experiment supports Situationism, as it indicates that people change their demeanor, depending on the situation.

Birth of the Concept:

This concept started in the late 1950’s and kept going until the early 1970’s and was influenced by Surrealism, Dadaism  and also Lettrism. in 1957,’Situationiste Internationale’, a very famous magazine was founded, which included various artistic things inside it. This movement began with many traditional artists. However, as time went on, the group started to include look at different ways of creating art, by looking at the theme of Anarchy.

Situationism included two main concepts. The first was ‘The Spectaceand it’s society’ and the second ‘Détournement’. The Spectacle is used a lot in Situationism; It looks at how society is ruled by certain commands by people with more power than them. Whereas, Détournement signifies hijacking. it’s all about changing expressions against themselves. This influentual movement was used for political pranks.

My Views:

Personally, I think that Situationism is a very interesting subject. It’s something new and exciting to challenge. The fact that you must hold back on your personal feelings and almost become aligned with external features. I think that this allows humans to explore the world from a different perspective.

Situationist International 

Meaning:

“Dada”, written phonetically as (/ˈdɑːdɑː/), is commonly referred to as ‘baby talk’, since infants normally call their father figure that. This is a very simplistic utterance which has a lot of associations. Interestingly, Dada actually translates into ‘hobby horse’ in French.

Movement:

Dadaism (Dada), in itself, was an anti-art movement. The aim was create radical pieces that generated a big reaction from the audiences. Dadaists dispensed all of their artistic thinking and completely changed the way in which they depicted the world.

Many artists would get together and form clubs, such as Cabaret Voltaire. This particular club was started by Hugo Ball (born February 22, 1886) and his wife, Emmy Hemmings. Here, they were able to combine their adoration for poetry, dance, music and performance. Later, many artists joined from all different area’s of interest and added to the club’s knowledge.

Dadaism focuses on doing the opposite of what’s considered to be normal. It’s all about breaking the normal conventions and rules of society. This theme first started  as a reaction to World War One and the main aim was to surprise and shock people. Members of the group wanted to achieve a large audience reaction, therefore they thought of many ways to explore this and test the audiences responses. In turn, they began to receive great attention from doing their creative stunts and work. They did many exhibitions, which would vary from poetry to putting up posters and photo-montages. They would do ordinary things, but in different, more all spontaneous and free ways.

Between the year of 1974 and 1976, another movement called Punk Rock was formed. Jamie Reid were quite influential to this genre. Reid was also an anarchist and linked to the popular group ‘the Situationists’. They would cut-up newspapers and create photo-montages to represent this. This genre of music and art was common in at least three English-speaking countries at the time, including the UK. The movement were quite similar to Dada, in that they also went against the expected characteristics of art. They shook up society, since their views were quite extreme. Here are some examples from the Rock movement:

Name Selection:

The actual word Dada was chosen in a very crazy way. A man simply stabbed a knife into a dictionary and the first word that it pointed at was chosen.

Time Period:

This concept of Dadaism began

Dadaism came up when the first world war was in action, as a reaction towards it.

in 1916 by Hugo Ball and has majorly  influenced the way that artists work. Hugo Ball had many degree’s of creativity. He was a poet, author and of course dadaist. Examples of photo-montages in Dada form:

In this photograph above, there are three different characters which were all created by Ball. These were completed in the early and late 19th century. Each capture unique and outstanding performances, some done at Cabaret Voltaire, which captured the moment within a split-second of a frame. They all express Ball’s ideologies about the world. During that time period, he was probably trying to protest against the negative occurrences, in particular the world wars.

Hugo Ball quotes:

• The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise? 
• We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.
• Everywhere, the ethical predicament of our time imposes itself with an urgency which suggests that even the question “Have we anything to eat?” will be answered not in material but in ethical terms.
• It’s inspiration that counts, not the drill.

The international Dada Fair was captured with this photograph:

“For us, art is not an end in itself,” Hugo Ball said, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in”. The group was not so worried about the aesthetical qualities of their work. They just wanted to show their thought processes and ideas. The Dadaists used many modernised techniques. Their main methods of displaying work was in photomontages and collages. Famous examples include:

Tom Pope himself uses this concept, frequently, as an influence for his work. Nowadays, there are many new concepts, which have been previously influenced by Dadaism. Examples include: Situationism, Fluxus, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Minimalism and Performance Art.

“DADA, as for it, it smells of nothing, it is nothing, nothing, nothing.” – Picabia.