Abstract

The use of mathematics as an instrument of subversion : The Situationist Times (1962-1967) This article examines the journal The Situationist Times (The S.T. ), published by the Dutch artist Jacqueline de Jong from 1962 to 1967. The publication, with its complicated beginnings, brought together dissidents of the Situationist International, former surrealists and ex-members of CoBrA. The influence of Asger Jorn played a decisive role. The S.T. dedicated two of its issues to mathematics and to topology in particular. What reasons and circumstances led these artists to take an interest in such a difficult and relatively unrecognized field ? The analysis of the journal has been enriched by the study of Asger Jorn’s writings and their comparison with other, similar undertakings, in which the use of mathematics translates a desire to invent new conceptual models. The S.T. humorously combines scientific demonstrations and heady arguments that inspire doubt and confusion in the mind of the reader. It thereby breeds confusion and subverts scientific discourse. But subversion can also be understood here in its more literal sense. As a science of continuities and transformations, topology allows for the study of spaces in which the usual spatial markers

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