michel de certeau Born in Chambry Savoie 1925

michel de certeau Born in “Chambéry Savoie, 1925 -Paris, 9 January 1986. ” “Certeau's education was eclectic. After obtaining degrees in classics and philosophy at the universities of Grenoble, Lyon, and Paris, he undertook religious training at a seminary in Lyon, where he entered the Jesuit order (Society of Jesus) in 1950 and was ordained in 1956. Certeau entered the Society of Jesus hoping to do missionary work in China. In the year of his ordination, Certeau became one of the founders of the journal Christus, with which he would actively be involved for much of his life. In 1960 he earned his doctorate in theology from the Sorbonne after completing a thesis on the mystical writing of Jean. Joseph Surin. “ “French Jesuit and scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences. ” http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Michel_de_Certeau background

michel de certeau summary “the practice of everyday life” argument: elite/dominant culture imposes power structures upon the masses/common people. individuals within mass culture find ways to navigate (i. e. “tactics”) and create new “in” product (i. e. “re-use”). “…. [Spanish] imposing their own culture on the indigenous Indians is well known. Submissive, and even consenting to their subjection, the Indians nevertheless often made of the rituals, representations, and laws imposed on them something quite different from what their conquerors had in mind; they subverted them not by rejecting or altering them, but by using them with respect to ends and references foreign to the system they had no choice but to accept. They were other within the very colonization that outwardly assimilated them; their use of the dominant social order deflected its power, which they lacked the means to challenge; they escaped it without leaving it. “ (the practice of everyday life, pg 3).

michel de certeau summary “the practice of everyday life” examples of “power” structures, or systems of production (i. e. “strategy”): language, syntax “By adopting the point of view of enunciation-which is the subject of our study-we privilege the act of speaking; according to that point of view, speaking operates within the field of a linguistic system; it effects an appropriation, or reappropriation, of language by its speakers; it establishes a present relative to a time and place; and it posits a contract with the other (the interlocutor) in a network of places and relations. These four characteristics of the speech act[3] can be found in many other practices (walking, cooking, etc. ). An objective is at least adumbrated by this parallel, which is, as we shall see, only partly valid. Such an objective assumes that (like the Indians mentioned above) users make (bricolent) innumerable and infinitesimal transformations of and within the dominant cultural economy in order to adapt it to their own interests and their own rules. ” (“The Practice…. ” pg. 3) reading, urban layout/maps, television/media, etc. e. g. coupons, discounts

michel de certeau examples, research “ Walking in the City” de Certeau---how people navigate the city, shortcuts.

michel de certeau interpretation “the practice of everyday life” RELATING READING TO PROJECT: “user” and interface. agency, navigation of technological structures. “Reading thus introduces an "art" which is anything but passive. ” (“the practice…”pg 11). exploring and relating with social/cultural groups/user’s experience. new “products” users make with our structures/spaces.

michel de certeau NIKKI LEE: projects (1997 -2000) “Because it’s action and reaction. I’m reacting to the other person in the relationship. I’m interested in how people’s identities are affected in the context of a relationship. My first work, “Projects, ” is about sociology. The context of people. The second work is about relationships. I’m interested in knowing people. I think it’s a really amazing thing to know people. ” http: //www. thememagazine. com/stories/ni kki-s-lee/ related artwork

michel de certeau POONEH MAGHAZEHE puritan pride, 2009. related artwork

michel de certeau YVES NETZHAMMER the subjectivisation of repetition, 2007 multimedia installation: architecture, drawing, sound, video loose project approach