Limelight

Limelight (produced lahym-lahyt)

(1) In the lighting systems of live theatre, prior to the use of electricity, a lighting unit for spot-lighting the front of the stage, producing illumination by means of a flame of mixed gases directed at a cylinder of lime and having a special lens for concentrating the light in a strong beam.

(2) The light produced by such a unit (and subsequently by lights using other technology.

(3) In theatre slang (1) a lighting unit (also clipped to “limes”), especially a spotlight & (2) by extension, attention, notice, a starring or central role, present fame (source of the general use of the word).

(4) The centre of attention, interest, observation, or notoriety.

(5) As “limelight dress”, a designed to make the wearer the “centre of attention”.  Of late, “limelight” has been applied also in high street fashion to refer to garments made with neon-like fabrics which resemble a color under a bright light.

1826:  The construct was lime + light.  Lime (in this context) was from the Middle English lyme, lym & lime, from the Old English līm, from the Proto-Germanic līmaz, from the primitive Indo-European sley- (smooth; slick; sticky; slimy).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Liem (glue), the Dutch lijm, the German Leim (glue), the Danish lim (from the Old Norse lím) and the Latin limus (mud).  In chemistry, the word described any inorganic material containing calcium (usually calcium oxide (quicklime) or calcium hydroxide (slaked lime).  In literary or poetic use, it was used of any gluey or adhesive substance, usually in the sense of “something which traps or captures someone” and sometimes as a synonym for birdlime.  It was used as a verb to mean (1) to apply to some surface a coasting of calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide (lime) & (2) to smear with birdlime or apply limewash.

Lime (chemical formula: CaO) is composed primarily of calcium oxides and hydroxides (typically calcium oxide and/or calcium hydroxide) and the origin of the word lies in its early use as building mortar (because of its qualities of sticking or adhering).  It was the interaction of lime with other substances which lent the concrete mixed in Ancient Rome (known to engineers as “Roman concrete”) unique properties that made it remarkably durable and long-lasting (though despite the legend, it was no more “sticky” that other concrete using the same quantity of lime).  A critical ingredient in Roman concrete was a type of volcanic ash called pozzolana (abundant in the environs of Rome) which was mixed with lime and small rocks or rubble to create a paste that could be molded into various shapes and sizes.  What created uniqueness was the chemical reaction between pozzolana and lime when the mix was exposed to water, this creating a mineral called calcium silicate hydrate, the source of Roman concrete’s durability and strength.  Unusually, it was able to harden underwater and for centuries resist the effects of saltwater (indeed such exposure triggered a kind of “self repair” reaction), making it ideal for building structures like harbors and aqueducts and, in a happy coincidence, the easy accessibility of pozzolana meant Roman concrete could be produced at a lower cost than other building materials.  Engineers note the chemistry but maintain the slang “sticky concrete” remains appropriate because its durability meant the stuff is still “sticking around”, centuries after other forms of concrete have crumbled to dust. 

Light (in this context) was from the Middle English light, liht, leoht, lighte, lyght, & lyghte, from the Old English lēoht, from the Proto-West Germanic leuht, from the Proto-Germanic leuhtą, from the primitive Indo-European lewktom, from the root lewk- (light).  It was cognate with the Scots licht (light), the West Frisian ljocht (light), the Dutch licht (light), the Low German licht (light) and the German Licht (light) and related also to the Swedish ljus (light), the Icelandic ljós (light), the Latin lūx (light), the Russian луч (luč) (beam of light), the Armenian լույս (luys) (light), the Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós) (white) and the Persian رُخش‎ (roxš).  The early uses (in this context) all were related to the electromagnetic radiation in the spectrum visible to the human eye (ie what we still commonly call “light”).  Typically, the human eye can detect radiation in a wavelength range around 400 to 750 nanometres and as scientific understanding evolved, the shorter and longer (ultraviolet light and infrared light) wavelengths, although not visible, were also labeled “light” because, as a matter of physics, they are on the spectrum and whether or not they were visible to the naked eye was not relevant.  “Light” in the sense of illumination was literal but the word was also productive in figurative and idiomatic generation (the “Enlightenment”; “leading light”; “negative light”; “throw a little light on the problem”; “bring to light”; “light the way” etc).  Limelight is a noun & verb, limelighting is a verb, limelighted & limelit are adjectives and limelighter is a noun; the noun plural is limelights.

Three exemplars of the art. 

The term “limelight dress” was coined to describe a garment designed to attract the eye (or a photographer's lens), making the wearing the “centre of attention” in the manner of a stage performer in the limelight: Rita Ora (b 1990, left), Ariel Winter (b 1998, centre) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) illustrate the idea; while there are often commonalities in the way designers do these things, there are many variants.  It has in recent decades become less easy to achieve the “limelight dress effect” because of the mainstreaming of the “nude dress” and it may be that a more modest cut, if well executed, might work better for clickbait purposes, just because of the novelty.  Rita Ora with some aplomb wore the dramatic gown designed by Donna Karan (b 1948) at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards in 2014 and while it was much admired, a similar creation in the same scarlet by Alexandre Vauthier (b 1971) Couture created a sensation when worn by Bella Hadid (b 1996) at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.  Perhaps the ultimate “limelight dress”, it remains still probably the dress of twenty-first century.     

In the limelight: In a marquisette gown, Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) sang Happy Birthday Mr President to John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963) at a Democratic Party fundraiser at New York's Madison Square Garden on 19 May, 1962, ten days before his actual birthday.  Within three months, she would be dead.

The dress became one of the best-known garments of the Marilyn Monroe cult and it re-appeared at the 2020 Met Gala in New York City, worn by Kim Kardashian (b 1980) complete with blonde hair for the occasion.  It couldn’t be expected to cause quite the same stir as sixty years earlier because, cut from a sheer, silk marquisette that almost exactly matched Ms Monroe’s skin-tone, the 2,500 hand-sewn rhinestones intricately were positioned to respond to the particular gait she chose that evening and, under the limelight in the darkened amphitheatre, as she moved, the crystals sparkled and the dress came alive.  It was quite a design.  In the hard, white light of the Met Gala’s red carpet, it couldn’t be expected to work the magic it did all those years ago; not shimmering in the darkness, it seemed lifeless and perhaps it would have benefited from the contrast her lustrous natural hair would have lent but Ms Kardashian wore it well, attracting admiration (and criticism from the usual suspects) too for the reasonable achievement of in three weeks shedding a reputed 16 lbs (7¼ kg) to ensure a (close to) comfortable fit.

Limelight was the common name for the Drummond light (or calcium light), a lamp of then unprecedented luminosity created by the burning of calcium oxide (lime).  The process of creating light by burning lime augment by oxygen & hydrogen had been invented in the early 1920s and, generating an intense white light, it was developed in 1925 for use in mining and surveying by Scottish army engineer Captain Thomas Drummond (1797-1840) and soon adopted for lighthouses although it became famous from the use in live theatre where directional spot-lights were used to illuminate the principal actors on stage and although the technology has moved on, in theatre, film & television production, catwalks etc, “limelight” is still often used to describe both the physical lighting equipment and the effect produced.  In popular entertainment, limelight came into use in the UK in the mid-1830s and, cheap to produce and easily exported, were soon in use around the world, even the military finding them useful, the army to assist the targeting of artillery (an early example of applying technology to fire-control systems) and the navy found they were vastly more effective than any other spotlight.  Limelights remained in widespread use until replaced by electric devices in the late nineteenth century but in some far-flung outposts of the British Empire, they were still in use even after World War II (1939-1945).

Lindsay Lohan (1) "in the limelight", on stage with Duran Duran, Barclays Center in New York, April 2016 (left) and (2) "in the glare", arriving at LA Superior Court, Los Angeles, February 2011 (right) during her "troubled Hollywood starlet" phase.  

Although "glare" isn't vested with quite the cachet of "limelight", Ms Lohan illustrated how the catwalk was but a state of mind, pairing a white bandage dress (it’s not clear if wearing the color the Bible associates with purity influenced the judge but channelling the fashion choice of the 24 elders in Revelation 4:4 and the Roman Catholic pontiff may have helped) with a pair of Chanel 5182 sunglasses.  Speculatively, it’s at least possible a strut under the limelight on the catwalk wouldn’t have had the same simulative commercial effect as the stroll to a hearing, the the US$575 Glavis Albino dress from Kimberly Ovitz's (b 1983) pre-fall collection selling-out worldwide that very day.

New York Post, 11 February, 2011: Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) editors always have a feeling for a good headline.  On X (then known as Twitter), Ms Lohan observed of the coverage: “What I wear to court shouldn't be front page news.  It’s just absurd.”  However, as a studious student of the modern media, she would have understood the place of absurdity in tabloid journalism and doubtlessly accepted it was best to work with the world as it is than worry too much about how it ought to be.

From the idea of the character on stage being highlighted by the limelight came the figurative use of the phrase “in the limelight” (noted since 1877) to refer to anyone on whom attention is focused.  From this evolved the related and self-explanatory phrases “steal the limelight”, “bask in the limelight” & “hog the limelight”, all from the world of theatre but later adopted as required just about anywhere (sport, corporate life etc).  “In the limelight” tends to be used only positively; those who are the focus of attention for reasons such as being accused of committing crimes or some transgression which might lead to cancellation are usually said to be “in the glare”.

1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda in Limelight (left) and 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye Jailbreak in Sublime (right).  Although today much prized, Chrysler's E-body pony cars (Plymouth Barracuda (& 'Cuda) and Dodge Challenger (1970-1974) were a financial disaster but, as Dodge's (2008-2023) revival proved, the styling was spot-on.   

Like other US car manufacturers in the strange, cultural twilight zone that was the dying days of the Johnson administration (Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 & POTUS 1963-1969)) and the first term of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974), Chrysler had some history in the coining of fanciful names for colors dating from the psychedelic era.  What came from the once staid corporation included “Plum Crazy”, “In-Violet”, “Tor Red”, “Limelight”, “Sub Lime”, “Sassy Grass”, “Panther Pink”, “Moulin Rouge”, “Top Banana”, “Lemon Twist” & “Citron Yella”.  Although it may be an industry myth, the story told is that “Plum Crazy” & “In-Violet” (lurid shades of purple) were late additions because the killjoy board refused to sign-off on “Statutory Grape”.  Plymouth labelled their lime green “Limelight” while Dodge used “Sub Lime”.  The acid-themed shades so associated with the era vanished from the color charts in the early-1970s, not because of changing tastes but in response to environmental & public health legislation which banned the use of lead in automotive paints; without the additive, production of the bright colours was prohibitively expensive.  Advances in chemistry meant that by the twenty-first century, the look could again be achieved without the addition of lead so Dodge revived psychedelia for a new generation although “Sub Lime” became “Sublime”.  There was however, still a price to be paid, the new, environmentally less lethal, “Sublime”, “Red Octane”, “Sinamon Stick” and “Go Mango” all costing an additional US$395 while the less vivid shades listed at US$95.

Porch

Porch (pronounced pawrch or pohrch)

(1) In architecture, an exterior appendage to a building, forming an approach to a doorway, now usually with a roof which may be separate or an extension of that of the main structure; if walls are included, a porch is said to be “vestibule-like”.

(2) An exterior roofed gallery, often partly enclosed; a veranda.

(3) As “the Porch”, the portico or stoa in the agora of ancient Athens, where the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium and his followers met.

(4) Applied loosely (often in commerce, especially the real estate business), similar structures such as porticos, balconies, decks, verandas and such.

(5) In aerospace engineering, the platform outside the external hatch of a spacecraft.

1250–1300: From the Middle English porche (covered entrance; roofed structure, usually open on the front and sides, before an entrance to a building), from the Old French porche (porch, vestibule), from the Latin porticus (covered gallery, covered walk between columns, arcade, portico, porch), from porta (city gate, gate; door, entrance), from the primitive Indo European root per- (to lead, pass over).  In the Old English the Latin form was borrowed as portic.  By the late fourteenth century, a porche was understood as a “covered walk or colonnade on the front or side of a building”; by the early 1830s it was used in the US for the structures described in the UK as verandas.  Porch and porchful are nouns, porchless, porchlike & porched are adjectives; the noun plural is porches.

Porch swingers.

Vice-Admiral William Raborn (1905-1990; Director of Central Intelligence, 1965-1966, left) and Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; POTUS 1963-1969, right), sitting on porch swing on the porch of LBJ's boyhood home near Stonewall, Texas, 1965.  Admiral Raborn was a gallant sailor with a fine record but wholly was unsuited handling the politics demanded in the role of heading the CIA and served as the nation's chief spy for little more than a year.  If LBJ appears happy, it's likely because recently he'd been elected POTUS in one of the largest landslides recorded and the troubles caused by the war in Vietnam have yet to consume his presidency.

Some variants of porch are obvious: A “back porch” is a porch at the back of a structure (typically a house) while a “front porch” is at the front; any building with a porch may be described as “porched” (used usually as a modifier).  In architecture there are also what might be called “side porches” but the term is not in general use.  A structure is “porchless” if designed or built without a porch while an “outporch” is a now archaic term meaning “an exterior porch”; it’s of minor interest to historians of architecture because it suggests there was a time free-standing structures also were thought of as porches.  A “porchful” is “the quantity of stuff said to “fill a porch”, those items typically being “porch chairs” or “porch swing” (a seat with armrests and a back, built usually for two, and suspended from the ceiling with hooked chains (or cables) enabling it to rock back & forth.  Collectively such items could be styled “porch furniture” although “patio furniture”, “deck furniture” & “outdoor furniture are now in more common use.  All these pieces might be illuminated by a “porch light” (also as “porch-light” & “porch lamp”, a wall or ceiling-mounted light, often fitted with a protective grill).  Once such accessories have been placed, that constitutes one’s “porchscape” and although tables are not uncommon on larger porches, the term “porch table” seems not to be a thing.

A house with “wrap-around porch”, part of which (left) has been converted to a “sunporch” by the addition of glass panes.

The term “porchway” did not (as the name might suggest) describe an “extended or elongated porch” but was simply a synonym of porch; use is now thought archaic.  A “snow porch” was an enclosed but un-heated structure which was a feature in arctic areas or other places with very cold climates.  Snow porches were accessible from within a dwelling and typically used as storage for firewood and such, the advantage compared with an outside shed being those within didn’t have to walk outside in the cold to fetch a load.  Unlike a “sunroom” (a windowed room optimized for receiving natural light), a “sunporch” was a conventional porch to which windows (sometimes able to be opened) had been added.  In nautical use, a “wetporch” (also called a “moon pool”) was a feature in the hull of a vessel used for lowering equipment into the sea below.  Although used in a number of sub-surface environments and underwater habitats, the structures are most associated with off-shore mining and oil extraction, frequently seen on marine drilling platforms.

117 South Hervey Street, Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas.

This is the house in which Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) spent the first four years of his life.  In June 1997, it was opened to the public as President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site which was a little opportunistic, his actual birth happening at Hope's now-demolished Julia Chester Hospital, the site now occupied by a funeral home.  The house's porch would be called a “front porch” and although when young Mr Clinton doubtless spent much time “on the porch”, later in life he didn't always “stay on the porch”.

A variant style was the stoop (raised open platform before the entrance of a house, approached by steps and thus neither a veranda nor a porch) and elements of the concept can be seen even in the dwellings uncovered in archaeological digs of prehistoric settlements but stoops seem first to have been so named in the mid eighteenth century to describe the feature in wooden houses in North America (including Canada which shared many of the building styles of the north-eastern US).  Stoop was from the Dutch stoep (flight of steps, doorstep, threshold), from the Middle Dutch, from Proto-Germanic stap- (step).  The Dutch form evolved in South African English as stoep, first recorded in 1797 although oral use may pre-date this.  Stoep was an element of the slur “stoep-sitter” which described a “habitually idle person who spends all day lounging on his stoep”.  Despite being a South African coining, it seems not to have been directly exclusively towards the non-white population, unlike the equivalent form from the US: “porch monkey” (a lazy black person characterized as idling away the hours sitting on a porch).  A modern coining was “porch pirate” (a criminal who practices “porch piracy”, stealing from porches packages delivered by a courier).  Although not a new class of crime, instances have soared with the increasing popularity of on-line shopping and the pattern seems mostly to be opportunistic; porch pirates driving around high-income neighborhoods and stealing whatever cartons are observed, a risky approach in the age of ubiquitous domestic CCTV systems.  However, law enforcement agencies have revealed their analysis indicates some porch piracy may be facilitated by “inside information” with porch pirates “tipped off” (by those somewhere in the supply chain) about desirable or high-value deliveries.

What used to be Standard Christian church architecture.  A narthex is a particular type of porch, many churches having a narthex and one or more porches. 

In church architecture, although Christian churches often had one or more porches, a special case was the narthex, an enclosed passage at the west end of a basilica or church, usually at right angles to the nave and located between the main entrance and the nave.  Theologically (and historically, thus socially), the significance of the narthex in many early Christian and Byzantine basilicas & churches was as well as being a conventional “lobby area”, it was place penitents were required to remain.  Although the archaeological record suggests there may have been some early churches with annexes or even small separate structures located nearby which fulfilled the latter function, narthexes seem quickly to have been integrated.  That means that structurally and architecturally, a narthex was part of the building but theologically was not, its purpose being to permit those not entitled to admission as part of the congregation (mostly catechumens and penitents) nevertheless to hear the service and (hopefully) be encouraged to reform their ways and pursue communion.  For ceremonies other than services, the narthex was otherwise a functional space, the church’s baptismal font often mounted there and in some traditions (both Eastern & Western) worshipers would sometimes anoint themselves and their children with a daub of holy water before stepping foot in the nave; some branches of the Orthodox Church use the narthex for funeral ceremonies.  There were also architectural variations in the early churches which persisted in larger building and cathedrals, the narthex divided in two, (1) an esonarthex (inner narthex) between the west wall and the body of the church proper, separated from the nave and aisles by a wall, trellis or some other means and (2) an external closed space, the exonarthex (outer narthex), a court in front of the church façade with a perimeter defined by on all sides by colonnades.

In the Western Church, reforms removed the requirement to exclude from services those who were not full members of the congregation which of course meant the narthex technically was rendered redundant.  However, the shape churches had assumed with a narthex included had become part of Church tradition so architects continued to include the space, both as part of the nave structure and something semi-separated.  They attracted a number of names, borrowed mostly from secular buildings including vestibule, porch, foyer, hallway, antechamber, anteroom, entrance, entry, entryway, gateway, hall, lobby, portal & portico, the choice dictated sometimes by local tradition, sometimes by the nature of construction and sometimes the choice seems to have been arbitrary.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the esonarthex and exonarthex retained distinct liturgical functions, some rituals terminating in the exonarthex while services still exclusively penitential services are usually chanted in the esonarthex.  In dialectal northern English, the casual term for the penitents forced to remain in the narthex was “the narts”.

A example of a portico: 1500 San Ysidro Drive, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.  Lindsay Lohan livered here for a while during “troubled starlet” phase.

Because there are so many ways porchlike structures can be described, word nerds with a fondness for architecture do like to correct the linguistically sloppy.  In a diary note of 28 June, 1954, documenting an evening in the British Embassy in Washington DC, Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) doctor (Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977; president of the Royal College of Physicians 1941-1949, personal physician to Winston Churchill 1940-1965) recorded telling his patient: “I hope you did not get cold sitting on the balcony in the chill night air.”  “Portico, not balcony, Charles.” he was corrected with a “mischievous smile”.

Porte-cochère of the Jing An Shangri-La Hotel, Shanghai, PRC.  This porte-cochère features what may be the ultimate porch light.  Such lighting structures have been made possible by LED (light emitting diode) technology; before LED's such a thing would have been too maintenance-intensive because of the limited life of bulbs or tubes. 

If a portico sits above a space where vehicles draw up for passengers to alight it becomes a porte-cochère, something now most associated with hotels or the forecourts of commercial buildings.  If a walkway is of any length with a roof supported by rows of pillars, that is a colonnade.  The car is a Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W221, 2005-2013, specifically, a “facelift” version (2009-2013)).  A special version of the W221 (S 300 L) was produced for markets in the Far East which combined the LWB (long wheelbase) platform with the 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) V6; it was essentially a LWB version of the S 280 (which also, despite the name used the 3.0 V6) sold in many other markets.  The S300 L was produced for the hotel trade and other operators of limousines who didn't want either thirsty V8s or V12s or the less refined diesels.

Lindsay Lohan on a balcony.  Although in general use the terms for such structures are applied loosely, in architecture, a balcony is accessible structure extending from a building and without roof.  Even if a balcony party is covered by a small eave, it is still not a porch.

A portico is best described as an “architectural porch leading to the entrance of a building” so not exactly a “big porch” although most tend to be large scale.  A noted feature of the buildings of Antiquity, a portico is defined by having a roof structure atop a walkway and although many architecture guides insist this must be supported by supported or enclosed within walls, a roof protruding from a building with no such ground-based anchorage (a favourite trick of architects in the mid-twentieth century) can be thought a portico if there’s some sort of walkway beneath.  The essential feature is the provision of shelter from the elements.  Those seeking a bit of visual grandeur (not only the McMansion crew) sometimes will add a pediment (a triangular upper part) atop but architects caution this can look absurd or pretentious on smaller structures because the sense of proportion works best at scale.

The colloquial phrase “hard dog to keep on the porch” is a lament used (perhaps often resignedly) by women of their husband’s or boyfriend’s chronic infidelity, describing men who are unfaithful and generally “difficult to keep an eye on.”  Although long in idiomatic use in the Southern US, in 1999 it came to wider attention when used by crooked Hillary Clinton of her husband, serial philander Bill Clinton.  Crooked Hillary must have picked up the expression while living in Arkansas; she began her ascent of the political and financial ladder by marrying Bill Clinton and with every election of him there as attorney-general (1977-1979) or governor (1979-1981 & 1983-1992), voters received a free copy of crooked Hillary.  When he became POTUS, she remained part of the package as FLOTUS 1993-2001, the consensus among political scientists that “he’d never have made it without her and vice-versa”.  Wives often of course do sometimes leave husbands who refuse to “stay on the porch” but crooked Hillary stayed and that was a defensible decision because, like many transactional relationships, the choice of “stay or go” is a thing of cost-benefit analysis; in a marriage, like most of life, for everything you do there’s a price to be paid.  

Problem-solver crooked Hillary finds a solution.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; FLOTUS 1993-2001, far left), Chelsea Clinton (b 1980; FDOTUS 1993-2001, centre left), Bill Clinton, centre right) and Buddy (1997-2002; FD²OTUS 1997-2001, far right), strolling over the White House lawn, prior to a two-week vacation at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, 18 August 1998.  Unfortunately, crooked Hillary's expectation she'd found a companion loyal enough to “stay on the porch” wasn't realized, Buddy killed in a road accident outside the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York after running off to chase a car (though the vehicle wasn't one of the rare Monica 560s).  Whether to this day crooked Hillary blames her husband for “giving Buddy ideas” isn't known but certainly, he set the dog a bad example. 

What Can I Say (1983), original vinyl pressing by Gail Davies.  Record store staff weren’t always fastidious when applying the adhesive promotional stickers.

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, the expression must also have had some currency in the form “hard dog to keep under the porch” which indicates, at least in some cases or places, the particular significance of the architectural space was the roof rather than the floor.  The C&W (Country & Western) song You're a Hard Dog (To Keep Under the Porch) was co-written by Susanna Clark (1939–2012) and the extraordinarily prolific (credited with over 4000 C&W songs) Harlan Howard (1927-2002); it was first recorded by Gail Davies (b 1948) and released on What Can I Say (1983), her fifth studio album (a question mark not used in the album’s title).

Porch joke

An unemployed man went door-to-door, seeking jobs.  Impressed by the work-ethic, after agreeing an hourly rate, one resident handed him a brush and two large cans of green paint, telling him: “You can go and paint the porch out back.”  Three hours later the man returned and said: “I done finished the painting mister and I done a good job but I swear to you sir, that ain’t no Porsh, it be a Ferrari.”  In the original German, Porsche is pronounced with two syllables (Paw-shuh), not the sometimes heard single syllable Porsh.  In German, the final “e” is pronounced as a short uh.

Some paint required: 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial, as sold (top left) and on-track in period (top right) and 1972 Dino 246 GT, fire damaged (bottom left) and a 1972 246 GT in Medium Green Metallizzato over Nero leather (bottom right).  It's believed the factory finished only 21 of the 2,295 246 GTs coupés or 1,274 246 GTS spyders (targas) in Medium Green Metallizzato but another shade of green, Verde Medio Nijinsky, was rarer still, only three of those leaving the line.  The Dino was advertised for sale at US$129,500 and was sold although the price paid was not disclosed.  The wrecked 500 Mondial (the second one built and one of 13 examples with Pininfarina spider coachwork) at auction in August 2023 realized US$1.875 million.  It has yet to resurface, restored or otherwise.

A classic Queenslander with the porches the locals tend to call verandas.  Many Queenslanders were built on stilts: (1) to encourage natural cooling, (2) as a form of flood mitigation, (3) to facilitate easier pest and termite control and (4) to make hilly sites adaptable to house construction.

The term “vernacular architecture” entered the jargon of the profession in 1964 after being coined by Austrian-born US architect Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988).  It describes indigenous designs or methods of construction that evolved organically to suit local climates, available construction materials, social traditions and specific human needs.  In Queensland, Australia, the signature “vernacular architecture” was and remains the “Queenslander” although they’re less common than in their heyday.  In its classic form, a Queenslander can be imagined as a “house with a wrap-around porch” although the local term has long been “veranda”.  At scale, the style seems to have emerged in the 1840s as the optimal way, for a given footprint, to maximize air-flow and reduce internal temperatures, things of consequence in the sub-tropics and, in the age before electricity (let alone air-conditioning) much appreciated by British & European migrants from more temperate, less humid regions.  Much of Queensland also was subject to hard rain and the verandas provided expansive living, eating and even sleeping spaces which could be used rain, hail or shine.  Snow and ice rarely was an issue.

The Erechtheion and the Caryatid Porch

The Erechtheion on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

One of the world’s most famous porches is the most striking feature of the Erechtheion (from the Ancient Greek Ἐρέχθειον (Erékhtheion)), an Ancient Greek Ionic temple-telesterion on the north side of the Acropolis, dedicated to the goddess Athena.  Built late in the fifth century BC, the Erechtheion was one of the first major projects following the devastation of the Greco-Persian Wars, the re-building of the Acropolis thus vested with all the symbolic ambition of a “civilization reborn”.  Given that, while the mathematically precise lines of the Parthenon impart a projection of order, rationality, and imperial confidence, the Erechtheion seems architecturally anarchic but it too was a piece of messaging, preserving ancient, sacred traditions within the new Classical architectural.  Unlike so many of the neat, consistent, often symmetrical structures which have survived from Antiquity, the Erechtheion is an architectural outlier because the design needed simultaneously to solve several political, religious and topographical problems.  Even today, it would be a challenge on the site to fulfil the demands while achieving the symmetrical perfection normally associated with Classical Greek temples.  For those reasons, anyone undertaking a tour of Roman and Greek ruins would, on first sight, find the Erechtheion startling, the look fragmented and seemingly so improvised many might assume additions have over the years been “tacked-on”.  The irregularity was deliberate, the location not being dedicated to a single deity; as well as honoring King Erechtheus, the architects were compelled to incorporate several ancient cult sites and sacred objects associated with Athena, Poseidon, and a grab-bag of local heroes and ancestral cults.

From the right angle, on the right day the Erechtheion can make a memorable photograph.

Mostly though, despite the name, the myth most celebrated was the legend of the site being the place where Athena and Poseidon competed for patronage of Athens, dedicated cultists holding the soil contained physical remnants of the epic contest including a sacred salt-water spring, Poseidon’s trident mark etched in the rock and Athena’s olive tree.  Because these relics of the past were in architecturally inconvenient places, the structure of the Erechtheion had to be “built around them”, thus precluding the simple rectangular floor plan and associated motifs which are such a marker of the temples from Antiquity.  The topography was also significant, the Acropolis rock beneath sloping sharply, meaning the surface was uneven.  As a piece of civil engineering this could of course have been levelled (if one had enough time and slaves, mountains could be moved) but that would have disturbed the relics so the work proceeded on what was a most irregular surface.  That made construction more of a challenge but did result in one of Antiquity’s most striking temples, the east and west sides at different heights, the interior chambers located on floors and varied levels and porches are placed asymmetrically, one consequence being it emerging as a complex of interconnected sanctuaries rather than the more familiar, single unified hall.

Within are several shrines, the eastern section dedicated to Athena Polias (Athena of the City), while the western portions were associated with Poseidon-Erechtheus and hero cults (best thought of as “best supporting actors” in Academy Award (Oscar) terms) meaning the entrances and their associated porches and portici served different ritual functions.  Although the layout and form were dictated by circumstances, in many ways, what was done proved a harbinger for much of public architecture in the centuries to come as the shape of “multi-function” buildings began increasingly to include physical segregation between spaces in both the horizontal and vertical with separate provisions for ingress and egress.  So while not “geometrically pure” in the Greek way, there’s an organic charm to the Erechtheion although Athenian citizens upon a first sight must have thought it peculiar or even weird architecture; the “shock of the new” is not unique to modernity.

The Caryatid Porch, the Porch of the Maidens.

The structure’s most famous and oft-photographed feature is the south porch, supported by a half dozen sculpted female figures: the Caryatids.  Caryatids was from the Middle French cariatide, from the Latin caryatides, from the Ancient Greek Καρυάτιδες (Karuátides), the noun plural of Καρυᾶτις (Karuâtis) (a priestess of Artemis, female figures used as bearing-shafts), from καρυατίζω (karuatízō) (dance the Karyatid festival dance) from Καρύαι (Karúai) (a town in Laconia with a temple of Artemis and the site of festivals in her honor).  The orthodox etymology is disputed by some scholars but the literal translation of karyatides is “maidens of Karyai” (an ancient Peloponnese settlement) and the young ladies from there were legendarily beautiful & healthy (and thus ideal “breeding stock”, good genes then as sought in mothers as they were in livestock).  In the language of architecture, caryatids were sculpted female figures used as supports in the manner of a column or pillar.  By necessity of physics, most caryatids supported the entablature (all of that part of a classical temple above the capitals of the columns; includes the architrave, frieze, and cornice but not the roof) on the head rather than the raised arms often seen in free-standing statutes, this done for reasons of structural integrity rather than aesthetics although it was a nod also to the notion of the girls of Karyai often being depicted as a canephora (basket-bearer), carrying to feasts of the goddesses Athena and Artemis fruits, nuts or sacred objects in woven cane baskets they placed on their heads.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

The Parthenon is the classic example of the Greek temple and more representative of the type than the Erechtheion.  It was proto-second wave feminist comrade Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 1949-1976) who reminded Chinese men “Women hold up half the sky” although he made the famous remark in 1968 at the height of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) which makes for an amusing historical juxtaposition.  Still, it does suggest that even if contemporary Athenians might have thought the Erechtheion a bit weird, the sight of a half-dozen young ladies holding up a roof built by a culture which was patriarchal (as was then the way) would have pleased the comrade Chairman who’d have felt assured the architects were good Maoists, the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) first constitution (1954) implying gender equality in Article 85 (Citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law) and made explicit in Article 86 (Citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law) & Article 96 (Women in the People's Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social and domestic life).  Reading the PRC’s 1954 constitution, it clear the place was as much as a paradise for citizens as the Soviet Union must have been based on comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) 1936 constitution although in Article 86 of the PRC’s document it was mentioned rights could be denied to those the state declared “insane”, a clause which proved handy over the years, as did a similar provision in the USSR.

The Parthenon, Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee.

Designed by architect William Crawford Smith (1837–1899), the Parthenon which stands in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  A full-scale reproduction of the original, it's now an art museum and in the Treasury Room are displayed plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles, cast from the original sculptures.  In the nineteenth century, Nashville was one of a number of cities around the world often styled "the Athens of the South" and this doubtless had some influence on the choice of the building as the exposition's centrepiece but while some of the other structures erected for the event were in the style of buildings from antiquity, the Parthenon was the only one to use exact dimensions.  The 1897 structure was intended to last only for the duration of the exposition and was thus built with plaster, wood & brick but such was the local support for its retention it was left standing, soon beginning to deteriorate.  By 1920 however it was a noted tourist attraction and had become accepted as a feature of the city so, on the same foundations, it was rebuilt in concrete, the project completed in 1931.  Concrete however doesn't possess the same qualities of durability as granite and marble so for the replica to maintain its appearance and structural integrity, progressive replacements of components will be required, engineers noting the essentially modular nature of the construction means it may never need wholly to be re-built.  If it endures long enough, it may end up as something of a Ship of Theseus.

The new headquarters of the state media’s China Daily during construction.  When finished if looked less confronting but one can see why the President Xi knew there had to be a good, hard crackdown on “weird architecture” being erected.

Much in the PRC has of course changed since comrade Chairman Mao’s time although gender equality remains constitutionally entrenched and that no women ever have made it to the Politburo’s ruling Central Committee may simply reflect them not trying hard enough, after all, during all those decades the One-Child Policy (1980-2016) was in effect, it’s not as if they could complain about the demands on their time made by raising a large family.  Still, the spirit of “Women hold up half the sky” must remain current thought in Beijing but whether President Xi Jinping (b 1953; General Secretary of the CCP & paramount leader of the PRC since 2012) would have approved of either the maidens of the Caryatid Porch "holding up all the roof" or the Erechtheion’s many other architectural idiosyncrasies may be doubtful.  As early as 2014, not best pleased by the stylistic exuberance seen in China's recent skyscrapers, Mr Xi called for an end to what he called “weird architecture”, telling planners buildings should be “suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye” rather than “oversized, xenocentric & weird”.  It might be concluded that while he’d have admired the elegant simplicity of the lines of the Parthenon, Mr Xi would have used of the Erechtheion the same critique he may (in words echoing an earlier critic of aesthetics) have levelled at what he was seeing on the Beijing skyline: “muddle, chaotic, dissonant, confused and intentionally ugly”.  China’s architects he may have accused of building stuff that was “weird” but, well-skilled at reading between the CCP's lines, they’d have understood they’d just been labeled “formalists”.  Carefully, they took note.

Now replicas but, thousands of years on, still doing the job.

Although at the time the caryatids were a highly unconventional addition to a major temple, as an architectural motif, they were not unique as replacements for columns or pillars, the later male versions being the telamon or atlas; unlike the caryatids, the male analogues sometimes were carved on a vast scale.  Nor was the structural technique only anthropomorphic, roofs sometimes supported by renderings in the shape of swords, serpents, fish or other wildlife although what some Instagrammers may not realize is the figures today dutifully holding up the roof of the Erechtheion’s Caryatid Porch are immaculately rendered reproductions, the originals safely preserved as displays in the Acropolis Museum except for one which sits in the British Museum.  That one was “obtained” by Lord Elgin (1766–1841) during his expeditions to Greece between 1800-1803 when he “purchased” (disputed by the government of Greece which suggests something like “plundered”) what came to be known as the “Elgin Marbles”.

Situationism

Situationism (pronounced sich-oo-ey-shuh-niz-uhm)

(1) A fork of Marxist political philosophy, a collection of (often abstract) theories used to build critiques of existing structures.  The overt political project emerged from the merging of a number of politically-minded, mid-twentieth century avant-garde art movement.  

(2) A theory in psychology which holds that personality and behavior is influenced more by external, situational factors than internal traits or motivations.

1955: A compound word: situation + ism.  Situation was from the early fifteenth century Middle English situacioun & situacion (place, position, or location), from Middle French situation, from the Old French situacion, from the Medieval Latin situationem (nominative situatio) (position, situation), the construct being situare (to locate, to place), from situs (a site, a position), thus situate +‎ -ion.  The Latin situs was from the primitive Indo-European root tkei (to settle, dwell, be home).  The meaning "state of affairs" was from 1710, extended specifically by 1803 to mean "a post of employment".  The suffix -ion was from the Middle English -ioun, from the the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  The use in political philosophy technically dates from 1955 (as situation ethics) although its origins can be traced to (at least) the nineteenth-century beginnings of sociology.  It was first seen in applied psychology in 1968 (as situational ethics) with publication of a monograph by Walter Mischel (1930-2018) who in later writings displayed some ambivalence.  Situationism is a noun, situationist is a noun & adjective and situationally is an adverb; the noun plural is situationisms.

The Internationale Situationiste (Situationist International)

Formed in 1957, dissolved in 1972 and eventually more a concept than a movement, the Situationist International (SI) was a trans-European collective of avant-garde artists and political radicals envisaged as a fusion of art & revolutionary activism; although originally a loose structure, it was later noted for its rigidity and its core critique was of modern consumer society, particularly under advanced capitalism. Influenced by criticism that philosophy had tended increasingly to fail at the moment of its actualization, the SI, although it assumed the inevitability of social revolution, always maintained many (cross-cutting) strands of expectations of the form(s) this might take but, just as a world-revolution did not follow the Russian upheavals of 1917, the events of May, 1968 failed to realize the predicted implications; the SI can be said then to have died with the discursive output between 1968-1972 treated either as a lifeless aftermath to an anti-climax or a bunch of bitter intellectuals serving as mourners at their own protracted funeral.

SI art: The Change (1957), paint on hardwood by Ralph Rumney (1934-2002).

The SI’s origins were in the north-western Italian town Cosio di Arroscia where, during a conference, several experimental art movements resolved to merge, the most prominent being (1) the Lettrist International, (2) the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus and (3) the London Psychogeographical Association.  Tellingly, although many original members were focused on the imagery of art, the most influential figure was the French theorist Guy Debord (1931-1994) who had in left-wing circles become fashionable after the publication of a number of essays in which he argued modern capitalist societies had become dominated by what he called “spectacle”.  That was the thesis he most fully explored in his most famous work, The Society of the Spectacle (1967) which asserted: (1) social life had become mediated by images, media & commodities, (2) real human relations were being replaced by a passive consumption of representations and (3) individuals increasingly experienced life as spectators rather than participants.  What all this meant was Western society had become a system where appearance (depictions of a “construct of reality” which were simulacrums) had replaced lived experience.

SI Agitprop.

Despite the political slant, when formed, the SI certainly retained an identity as something artistic and although membership was erratic with factional alignments constantly shifting, there always was a strain which valued the art for its intrinsic qualities at least as much as for any utility as propaganda pieces; indeed, it was the notion of art abstracted from some purpose which was the SI's constant fault-line.  Those most influential in the early days of the SI had been much affected by the physical damage suffered by so many European cities during World War II (1939-1945) and especially the possibilities offered by re-building, thus the interest in concepts like unitary urbanism and psychogeography, essentially a response to the sociological aspects of the re-construction of those cities in the immediate post-war period.

SI propaganda: The Situationist Times 6: International Parisian Edition, Paris, December 1967.

The Situationist Times was an international, English-language periodical created and edited by Dutch artist Jacqueline de Jong (1939–2024), six issues published between 1962-1967.  Envisaged as a radical compendium encompassing Situationist tactics such as détournement and a printed form of dérive, the journals included essays, artwork, “found” images, and fragments of works concerned with such issues as topology, politics, and spectacle culture.  In the anarchist sprit of the collective, Ms De Jong insisted the periodical must be a “completely free magazine, based on the most creative of the Situationist ideas” and what appears on the pages does over the years show traces of the political and aesthetic schisms which would characterize the SI.  As well as the SI’s usual suspects, contributors included the English astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) who (inadvertently) coined the term “big bang” and the French writer Noël Arnaud (pen name of Raymond Valentin Muller (1919- 2003) of the school of pataphysics (one of the late nineteenth century’s more curious alternatives to orthodox science which may (as QAnon seems to have) begun as a joke but took on a life because it so appealed to people who “wanted it to be true”).  With the failures of the Parisian revolutionaries in 1968, SI’s historic moment passed and the seventh edition of The Situationist Times, (The Pinball Issue) remained incomplete and was not published although extracts of the content have appeared.

SI Art: Untitled (Peinture collective situationniste) (1961).

As was done with the SI's “pieces by the collective”, Guy Debord and Jeppesen Victor Martin (1930–1993) signed along with eight other artists; within two years all except Debord and Martin had been expelled so in that sense, no work better illustrates the creative tensions which rent the SI.  Those “cancelled” in some cases regarded their erasure from the SI rolls as a badge of honor and Debord couldn't have them burned at the stake or taken outside and shot (which had over the years been the fate of a few artists who displeased a dictator) so there was that.  

Prior to the formation of the SI, some of what had been written about the form the physical reconstruction of post-war Europe should take had attracted interest from political theorists, especially those in anti-authoritarian Marxist circles who would come to position themselves as the inheritors of western political liberalism, notably the Lettrist International (formed in 1952).  In the way the European left did things in the early post-war years, the SI was conceived as an even more radical collective movement which wholly would renounce any connection with high-art and deal instead with the functional business of psychogeography, dissolving rather than exploring the boundaries between life and art.  However, whatever might have been the purity of the founders' intentions, because what the SI produced was eye-catchingly visual, it attracted practitioners in many fields of art and an audience which enjoyed the supposedly subversive pieces as just another spectacle.  That was tribute to the striking posters but wasn’t something which best pleased the uncompromising activists who viewed art merely as something with a revolutionary political purpose; factions formed and any commonality of interest between the utilitarians and the artists proved insufficiently strong to maintain the SI as a unified movement.  From formation to extinction, inherently it was fissiparous although, while members could be kicked out of the SI, it didn't mean their work ceased and the Scandinavian Drakabygget group (noted for the memorably titled Journal for art against atomic bombs, popes and politicians) essentially ignored their expulsion and continued to exhibit and publish in the Situationists vein.

SI art: Industrial Painting (1958), monoprinted oil paint, acrylic paint & typographic ink on canvas by Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio (1902–1964).

Unrolled from a wooden spool and extending just over 75 metres (246 feet) Industrial Painting was one of a series of abstract works Pinot-Gallizio painted in this mode.  Unspooling in a swirl of blotches of colors, the idea was to recall the vibrancy of figures moving along a city’s streets and a deliberate limitation of the design was only some 9 metres (30 feet) could be displayed at one time, the idea being to emulate a journey in which much of what’s just been seen fades or vanishes from memory as the traveller proceeds along their path.  In an indication of the way the SI worked in an industrial age, Pinot-Gallizio made these works on his “painting machine” which he built with mechanical rollers attached to a long table.  What emerged was, in contrast to most of what came from “conveyor-belt” mass production, chaotic and wholly unique.

Modern situationist; modern spectacle: French content creator & author Léna Situations (Léna Mahfouf, b 1997), in Georges Hobeika (b 1962) black gown with inverted V-neckline (technically a wedge), Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, March 2026.

Ms Mahfouf uses “Léna Situations” as an online pseudonym because that was the name of the fashion & lifestyle-focused blog she, as a teen-ager, created in 2012; it gained her a “brand identity” and was thus for some purposes retained in adulthood.  The blog would have seemed familiar to the members of the SI because her concept was sharing fragments of her life in different “situations” which might be defined by the place, the outfit worn or what was being experienced so was thus a series of spectacles, able to be understood as fragmentary relics of time & place or a series of narratives.  Using that model, platforms like Instagram have allowed just about everybody to become a situationist and while Debord didn’t live to see such things, he’d have recognized (if not approved) “social lives mediated by images, media & commodities”.

Charli XCX (stage-name of English singer-songwriter Charlotte Emma Aitchison (b 1992)) in a Christopher John Rogers (b 1993) white fit & flare dress with ruffled peplum, featuring a more conventional implementation of the V-neckline.

Ms Mahfouf's retention of a youthful online pseudonym is not unique, Charli XCX another example.  The star herself revealed the stage name is pronounced chahr-lee ex-cee-ex; it has no connection with Roman numerals and XCX is anyway not a standard Roman number.  XC is “90” (C minus X (100-10)) and CX is “110” (C plus X (100 +10)) but, should the need arise, XCX could be used as a code for “100”, on the model of something like the “May 35th” reference Chinese internet users, when speaking of the “Tiananmen Square Incident” of 4 June 1989, adopted in an attempt to circumvent the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) “Great Firewall of China” censorship apparatus.  In 2015, Ms XCX revealed the text string was an element in her MSN screen name (CharliXCX92) when young (it stood for “kiss Charli kiss”) and, after appearing in the early publicity for her music, it gained critical mass so Charli XCX we still have.

SI art: Lettre à mon fils (Letter to my son, 1956-1957), oil on canvas by Asger Jorn (1914-1973).

What quickly coalesced as the core of situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, an explanation of the mechanism of advanced capitalism’s modern tendency towards expression and mediation of social relations through objects and for structuralists it was a compelling model.  It was beyond a critique of materialism and might have been more effective had the SI been able to resist using the increasingly layered and complex language of the mid-twentieth century Marxist discourse, a sub-set of language which would come to delight academic deconstructionists but often baffled others.  As well as Debord’s writings, Belgium philosopher Raoul Vaneigem’s (b 1934) The Revolution of Everyday Life (1968) was a seminal work; in the riots of 1968, both proved influential, less as entire texts than as sources for the epigrammatic and graffiti-friendly phrases (Sous les pavés, la plage! (Under the paving stones, the beach!), L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire (Boredom is counter-revolutionary) and Ne travaillez jamais (Never work!) among the most replicated) which appeared all over French cities during the uprising.  In that, the SI thus proved the primacy of objects in social relations (whether hegemonic or not) although the SI generally held that “situationism” was a meaningless term, a position necessitated by their inherent rejection of ideologies, all of which they dismissed either as useless utopian myths or constructed superstructures existing only to create the social controls required to serve the economic interests of a ruling elite.  Much of the history of the SI was one faction rejecting another; indeed, the SI’s transition from artistic to political movement was less organic than disruptive.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The critique of the consumer society resonated strongly with student radicals who were the failed revolutionaries of 1968 but, remarkably for a crew which was so influential on mass-movements, the SI was always tiny (it wasn’t untypical for there to be fewer than two-dozen active members) with internal conflicts and expulsions common, Debord given frequently to banishing members he believed had compromised the group’s revolutionary aims, the worst sin of heretics apparently the creation of art which shocked by virtual of its appearance but did nothing to in anyway transform society; comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have called such transgressors “formalists”.  Neglected for decades, the concepts developed by the SI attracted renewed interest in the social media age as much of what they’d described suddenly seemed familiar.  Key SI concepts included (1) psychogeography (the study of how urban environments affect emotions and behaviour, (2) dérive (drift) in which a wander through a city was documented with illustrative images, (3) détournement (appropriating using existing cultural elements (advertisements, comics, artworks etc) and, in subversive ways, repurposing them to undermine their original ideological message) and (4) constructed situations which were “moments of life” (events, environments, experiences) created for no purpose other than breaking the passivity of everyday existence.  If all that sounds something like what may have appeared in the check-list used by the designers of Instagram, TikTok and such, it hints (1) the SI may have been onto something and (2) as US billionaire investor Warren Buffett (b 1930) put it when explaining the outcome of class warfare: “We won”.

A requiem for the SI: No Title (1975-1976), lithograph on paper by Constant Niewwenhuys (1920-2005).

Debord no more wanted the SI to be what would come to be called a “think tank” any more than he wanted an artist’s colony but certainly envisaged it as a theoretical vanguard rather than a conventional political organization, his view being that even if created as something “revolutionary”, such movements tended to be “captured” (ie absorbed into the very system they were created to subvert or at least oppose).  That was why the orthodox SI position was not to exhibit their works in galleries or museums because, in the spirit of Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) notion “the medium is the message”, once radical art was hung in such places, it became merely another commodity in the “spectacle”, dissenters accused of “recuperation” (a SI concept in which radical ideas had been neutralized and absorbed by mainstream culture).  So, members who were judged to have misunderstood or diluted Situationist orthodoxy (ie disagreed with Debord) were expelled, the rationale being what was valued in adherents was “quality rather than quantity”.  Although supposedly in the tradition of Marxist collective decision-making, Debord exercised extraordinary informal authority within the SI (despite the group officially rejecting hierarchy) and in practice, personally defined the SI’s theoretical parameters.  In a nice touch which would be familiar in places like the Soviet Union, the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) or the modern Republican Party’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) faction, the “culture of exclusion” was ritualized in the journal Internationale Situationniste which regularly would publish lists of those un-personed (including the reasons), the former members denounced in harsh language, the worst insults including accusations of “theoretical confusion” and the practicing of mere “pseudo-Situationism”; by the time of dissolution in 1972, the membership consisted of Debord and one remaining loyal soul.  The SI, at least in the more reductionist works, did create some genuinely interesting critiques of the post-war West and some of the early art was, if not exactly novel, certainly stark and compelling.  However, it remains hard to identify enough ideas to justify the volume of text produced and phrasing it in what was surely deliberately difficult language does suggest there was an attempt to conceal the repetition of thought.