The 1975 are using détournement to hijack billboard ads in the UK.

The 1975 are using détournement to hijack billboard ads in the UK.

It might be the weekend, but that doesn't mean that The 1975 are just sitting at home playing with Allen Ginsberg (the dog) and not planning more hijinks to ensure that we never ever get any sleep (shout-out to the NZ vs. UK timezone difference), nope, they've (of course) been busy introducing yet another link in their 'Music For Cars' album campaign to the situationist movement - this time using détournement ("the reuse of preexisting artistic elements in a new ensemble") to hijack existing billboard advertisements with the band's symbolic black rectangle, but pasting over the ad underneath so that the bottom ad still shows through the cut-out rectangle.

Like this:

 

Hijack!

A post shared by Jamie Oborne (@jamieoborne) on

The Situationist International's inaugural 1958 journal defined détournement as: "Short for 'détournement of preexisting aesthetic elements.' The integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those means. In a more elementary sense, détournement within the old cultural spheres is a method of propaganda, a method which reveals the wearing out and loss of importance of those spheres."

Are the band working up to a big Situationist Prank?

This fan @avery_rose_k has it all worked out:

It's important to note that these new détournement posters have the catalogue number DH00327. But what does this mean? We don't know, but this fan has some ideas:

@undograce points out that this doesn't explain what DH00326 is, but the theory of a double album does explain this tweet by the band's manager Jamie Oborne (explaining why The 1975 haven't delivered their promised new EP):

Also, note that there are some phrases on this original poster that are enclosed within quotation marks, so may potentially be the titles of some songs:

Tweet us your own theories @coupdemain!

Loading...
Load next

COUP DE MAIN’S TRUE JAMS PLAYLIST

Open in new window
Open in new window