Situationist Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Situationist International (SI), an international political and artistic movement, originated in the Italian village of Cosio d'Arroscia on 28 July 1957 with the fusion of several extremely small artistic tendencies: the Lettrist International , the International movement for an imaginist Bauhaus, and the London Psychogeographical Association. This fusion traced further influences from COBRA, Dada, Surrealism, and Fluxus, as well as inspirations from the Workers Councils of the Hungarian Uprising.The journal Internationale Situationniste defined situationist as "having to do with the theory or practical activity of constructing situations." The same journal defined situationism as "a meaningless term improperly derived from the above. There is no such thing as situationism, which would mean a doctrine of interpretation of existing facts. The notion of situationism is obviously devised by antisituationists."
One should not confuse the term "situationist" as used in this article with practitioners of situational ethics or of situated ethics.
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2 Legacy of the SI 3 Key ideas in Situationist theory 4 Quotes 5 See also 6 Sources |
The most prominent member of the group, Guy Debord, has tended to polarise opinion. Some describe him as having provided the theoretical clarity within the group; others say that he excercised dictatorial control over its development and membership. Other members included the Scottish writer Alexander Trocchi, the English artist Ralph Rumney (sole member of the London psycho-geographical society, Rumney suffered expulsion relatively soon after the formation of the Situationist International), the Scandinavian vandal-cum-artist Asger Jorn, the veteran of the Hungarian Uprising Attila Kotanyi, the French writer Michele Bernstein, and Raoul Vaneigem. Debord and Bernstein later married.
One way or another, the currents which the SI took as predecessors saw their purpose as involving a radical redefinition of the role of art in the twentieth century. The Situationists themselves took a dialectical viewpoint, seeing their task as superseding art, abolishing the notion of art as a separate, specialized activity and transforming it so it became part of fabric of everyday life. From the Situationist viewpoint, art is revolutionary or it is nothing. In this way, the Situationists saw their efforts as completing the work of both Dada and Surrealism while abolishing both. Still, the Situationists answered the question "What is revolutionary?" differently at different times.
The SI experienced splits and expulsions from its beginning. The one prominent split in the group resulted in the Paris section retaining the name Situationist International while the Scandinavian section, or the Second Situationist International organised under the name of Gruppe SPUR. While the entire history of the Situationists was marked by their impetus to revolutionize life, the split between the French and the Scandinavian sections marked a transition from the Situationist view of revolution possibly taking an "artistic" form to it taking an unambiguously "political" form.
Those who followed the "artistic" view of the SI might view the evolution of SI as producing a more boring or dogmatic organization. Those following the political view would see the May 1968 uprisings as a logical outcome of the SI's syncretic approach: while savaging present day society, they sought a kind of utopia in the fusion of the positive tendencies of capitalist development. The "realization and suppression of Art" is only one of many supercessions which the SI sought over the years. For Situationist International of 1968, the world triumph of workers councils would bring about all these supercessions.
An important event in the preparation of may 68 was the so called Straßbourg scandal. A group of stundents managed to use public funds to publish the pamphlet [http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/4 On the Poverty of Student Life:
considered in its economic, political, psychological, sexual, and particularly intellectual aspects, and a modest proposal for its remedy]. The pamphlet circulated in thousands of copies and helped to make the situationists
well known throughout the nonstalinist left.
[need paragraph on SI involvement in May 68, including occupation of the Sorbonne by the situs & Enrages...]
The SI dissolved in 1972, but despite their membership never having risen above 40 at any one time (and sometimes numbering as few as 10), Situationist ideas have continued to echo profoundly through many aspects of culture and politics in Europe and the USA.
The Situationist movement exerted a strong influence on the UK punk rock phenomenon of the 1970s, for example, which in itself could be said to have changed the English cultural landscape during the last quarter of the twentieth century. To a significant extent this came about due to the Situ-literate inputs of Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood and particularly Jamie Reid into the marketing and imagery of the Sex Pistols.
One can also trace situationist ideas within the development of other radical currents within society such as the Angry Brigade, Class War, Neoism and more recent Reclaim the Streets, AdBusters campaigns Libre Society and Swedish hardcore band Refused.
Classic Situationist texts include "Open Creation and its Enemies" by Asger Jorn, "Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord, "The Revolution Of Everyday Life" and "The Book Of Pleasures" by Raoul Vaneigem, "Leaving The 20th Century" edited by Chris Gray and "The Situationist International Anthology" edited by Ken Knabb.
Also of interest is an earlier book produced by Debord in pre-SI times, called "Memoires," the original edition of which featured a sandpaper cover. The idea was that it would destroy any books that were placed either side of it on the shelf, thus serving as a metaphor for the supercession of 'old ideas' by a radical avant-garde. This idea is also an interesting forerunner of the SI's later determination not to be 'recuperated' and thus rendered harmless by spectacular society, instead remaining aloof and refusing to 'explain' themselves or their ideas.
Many of the original Situationist texts tend to be dense and inaccessible. However, during the early 1980's English Anarchist Larry Law produced a series of 'pocket-books' under the name of "Spectacular Times" which aimed to make Situationist theory more easily understood. Some people, though, feel that he much reduced the theory by this process.
More recently, a book called The Situationist City by Simon Sadler (MIT 1998 ISBN 0262692252) focuses on Constant's unitary urbanism vision but also provides a useful overall perspective.
Ideas central to Situationist theory include:
This is an Article on Situationist. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Situationist History and overview
Legacy of the SI
Key ideas in Situationist theory
"The spectacle is not a collection of images but a social relation among people mediated by images... The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living... The liar has lied to himself"- Guy Debord
"Ha! You think it's funny? Turning rebellion into money?"- The Clash, White Man In The Hammersmith Palais.
One could view detournement as forming the opposite side of the coin to 'recuperation' (where radical ideas and images become safe and commodified), in that images produced by the spectacle get altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning becomes changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositionist message. Quotes
See also
Sources