Abstract

ANGELAKI journal of the theoretical humanities volume 24 number 5 october 2019 he banner is unambiguous in its edict-like T peremptoriness: “No human being is an alien on this earth” (Fig. 1). Attached to the highly estheticized, highly theatricalized Le Pont des Arts – a bridge where amorous prom- ises are exchanged between sweethearts and sealed with an inscribed “love lock”– it is nothing less than a solemn declaration made in the heart of cosmopolitan Paris. Recent FLYLEAVES memory of a ban on the locks seems only to emphasize the sign’s urgency. Its proclamation is an assertive speech act that both appropriates salah el moncef and redefines the performative aspect of the modern-day votive inscriptions formerly affixed to the bridge – the now-prohibited 2 ABRIDGETOO NEAR lovers’ padlocks (Fig. 2). Seen in relation to common perceptions of Le Pont des Arts as a détournement and the univocal symbol of love, the banner represents promise of a transnational an instance of Situationist detou ́ rnement operat- ing on two interrelated levels (Debord, consciousness “Definitions” 109): on one level, it indexes a neutralization of the bridge’s esthetic “aura” (Vaneigem 218); and on another it marks a stra- tegic “‘chiseling’” of the