–noun Psychology .
the theory that behavior is chiefly response to immediate situations.
m]The Situationist movement was a 'revolutionary alliance of European avant-garde artists, writers and poets.' They formed to make a group at a conference in Italy in 1957 (known as 'Internationale Situationiste' Situationist International or IS). It combined two existing groupings, the Lettrist International and the International Union for a Pictorial Bauhaus.
The leading figure was the writer and filmmaker Guy Debord.
Debord argued in 1967 that spectacular features like mass media and advertising have a central role in an advanced capitalist society, which is to show a 'fake reality in order to mask the real capitalist degradation' of human life (= Globalisation) . To overthrow such a system, the Situationist International supported the May '68 revolts, one of the largest strikes that saw the economy come to a virtual standstill. The SI asked the workers 'to occupy the factories and to run them with direct democracy, through workers' councils composed by instantly revocable delegates'.
The group 'prominently included the former Cobra painter Asger Jorn. The former Cobra artist Constant was also a member, and the British artist Ralph Rumney was a co-founder of the movement'.
The IS developed a 'critique of capitalism based on a mixture of Marxism and Surrealism', and Debord identified consumer society as the 'Society of the Spectacle' in his influential 1967 book of that title. In the field of culture Situationists wanted to break down the division between artists and consumers and make cultural production a part of everyday life. Situationist ideas played an important role in the revolutionary Paris events of 1968. The IS was dissolved in 1972.
With their ideas rooted in Marxism and the 20th century European artistic avant-gardes, they supported experiences of life being alternative to those admitted by the capitalist order, for 'the fulfillment of human primitive desires and the pursuing of a superior quality'.
To achieve this they suggested and experimented with the 'construction of situations' - setting up environments that were 'favourable' to fulfill the particular desires.
They used methods drawn from the arts and 'they developed a series of experimental fields of study for the construction of such situations', like unitary urbanism and psychogeography.
A video documentary combining exhibition footage of the Situationist International exhibitions with film footage of the 1968 Paris student uprising, and graffiti and slogans based on the ideas of Guy Debord. Also includes commentary by leading art critics Greil Marcus, Thomas Levine, and artists Malcolm Mac Laren and Jamie Reid. Branka Bogdanov, Director and producer.
"The serious thing about the situationists seems to be that they really "did" what they were talking about in theory. Just try to imagine to live on the streets for only three days, you going to have some experience. They didn`t divorce theory and practice whatever the results might be. Some of them ended up in prison or psychiatry, i think one of them got lost exploring the metro etc."
An Introduction to the Situationist International
"The touchstones of Marxist-situationist theory are these: A). That all forms of capitalist society, be they corporate or bureaucratic, are in the final analysis based on the generalized and -- at the level of the masses -- stable division between directors and executives: those who give orders and those who carry them out. B). That subsequent to the total domination and colonialisation of nature by technology (a victory that freed mankind from having to struggle to survive), the directorate, its hand forced by capitalism's need to locate and exploit new raw materials and new markets for its products, began its domination and colonialisation of human nature. The only other alternative was for the directorate to admit that the battle against nature had been won and that the directorate itself was no longer necessary or even desirable. C). That the domination and colonialisation of human nature took the form of a consumption-based society, rather than a production-based society; this "new" society the situationists called the society of the spectacle. D). That the alienation which, in the 19th century, was rooted in economic misery had, in the 20th century, become located in false consciousness. E). That this false consciousness believes that "everyday life" (i.e., one's personally selected ensemble of commodities and ideologies) is separate from "history" (i.e., the sum total of that which is accomplished at and by work). And F). That the society of the spectacle perpetuates itself by compensating those denied the opportunity to make history with more and more commodities, all of which are fundamentally unsatisfying because the ideology of survival remains coded within them."So essentially the Situations were looking at the way everyday lives are ruled by consumer items. How the effect of consumption of stuff affects the way we live and the way we should lived.
"One can discern three main periods in the situationists' development. In the first, which preceded the actual formation of the International in 1957, the situationists devoted themselves to derives, to drifting through the city for days, weeks, even months at a time, trying to find what the Lettrist Ivan Chtcheglov called "forgotten desires": images of play, eccentricity, secret rebellion, negation. The derives were part of a self-conscious attempt to organize a new vision of everyday life; this was a process that ordinarily took place without self-awareness. In the second period, which stretched from 1958 to 1962, the situationists experimented with the 'supersession' replacing of art. These experiments took four forms: 1). the imposition of additional or altered speech bubbles on pre-existing photocomics; 2). the promotion of guerilla tactics in the mass media; 3). the development of situationist comics; and 4). the production of situationist films. In the third period, which extended from 1963 to 1968, the SI developed a theory and practice of the exemplary act. Citing, celebrating, analyzing and, as often as possible, lending practical support to such exemplary acts of refusal as the Watts riots of 1965, the Algerian Revolution of 1966 and the resistance of students to the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1967, the SI made explicit their belief that the only successful revolutionary movement would be an international one. Some of these actions led nowhere; some -- like the assaults the SI itself made against French cyberneticians at the University of Strasbourg in 1966, and against sociologists at the University of Nanterre in 1967 -- led to May 1968, which was the first wildcat general strike in history, and the largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial society."
A look at SI articles and Images
"The Situationist writings have their greatest appeal to educated youth who oppose capitalism but dislike the banality of the Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist or Social Democratic forms of "Socialism". The situationist critique of capitalism is modernized in that it integrates the effects of mass media on the minds and behavior of the workers in contemporary consumer culture. The Situationist International advocated the voluntary & spontanious creation of workers councils at the time of a worker's revolution which would democraticaly own and manage the means of capital production, in order to ensure equal distribution of wealth: from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Most vital to situationists was the avoidance of any reliance on a set of bureacratic administrators, but rather the creation of a grass-roots, bottom-up democratic structure, with maximal preservation of liberty for the individual. Obviously, by definition, the Situationist International was a revolutionary, dissident movement... far to the left of what was considered the official "left".
Situationist writing is mostly inaccessable because of it's heavy intellectual jargon. It's puzzle-like, complex style makes it something which those who have time to over-intellectualize feel proud to be a part of (perhaps, simmilar to the more obscure computer programmers who teach themselves a programming language for the pure enjoyment of it?) But what this means is that a highly egalitarian theory and philosophy is quite palitable to a social sub-class which origionaly was not considered important in taking a part in social revolution: the intellectual lumpenproletariat (which includes students, who often do not have jobs), who generaly are considered the future technological and scientific life-blood of capitalist progression."
The SI held a direct attack on capitalism; they used 'aesthetics' as well as writing and theory. This meant that capitalism had to attempt to absorb it or be defeated by it. However, as with all countercultures, whether with ir without political organizing and activity, is forever doomed to failure - the mainstream always wins, if the counterculture becomes too mainstream it loses its effect and the point its trying to make.
"Common versions of such turn-arounds include situationist style graphics and writings which glorify the aesthetics of advertising or inadvertantly support the "free market", though usualy the message is simply: "Yes, society is dominated by illusions, simulations, and spectacles.. but so what? Let's all go along for the ride." "
"In their analysis, the Situationists argued that capitalism had turned all relationships transactional, and that life had been reduced to a "spectacle". The spectacle is the key concept of their theory. In many ways, they merely reworked Marx's view of alienation, as developed in his early writings. The worker is alienated from his product and from his fellow workers and finds himself living in an alien world: The worker does not produce himself; he produces an independent power. The success of this production, its abundance, returns to the producer as an abundance of dispossession. All the time and space of his world becomes foreign to him with the accumulation of his alienated products...."
"The SI’s revolutionary program included the elimination of all forms of representation: the undermining of all authority, the destruction of all symbols of power, the elimination of art (even that of the Classical avant-garde) and all other forms of cultural spectacle, the regaining of the reality of life that had been expropriated by a society of consumption and commodities—in short, the struggle against late capitalist dispossession.The rejection of the conventional intellectual discourse, its political radicalness, and also, quite simply, its limited number of members have contributed to the relative obscurity of Guy Debord and the SI outside France. As a consequence, the historical significance of the SI, which operated at the points of intersection between art and politics, is difficult to comprehend even today."
Other links about the movement:
The Situationist International
Quotes and May 1968 Graffiti
Exhibition organised around Debord
Basic introduction
History of
Timeline
Debord's Methods of Détournement essay
In the decor of the spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices.
Commute, work, commute, sleep . . .
Meanwhile everyone wants to breathe and nobody can and many say, “We will breathe later.”
And most of them don’t die because they are already dead.
Boredom is counterrevolutionary.
We don’t want a world where the guarantee of not dying
of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.
of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.
We want to live.
Don’t beg for the right to live — take it.
In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure
the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.
the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.
The liberation of humanity is all or nothing.
"The Situationists did not wish to create works of art but rather new situations, to provoke confusion within society and turn cities into "psycho-geographical hubs". Their greatest work of art, seen under this angle, was the uprising in Paris in May '68. Following the failure of the 1968 revolts, the movement was dissolved in 1972 and was forgotten by public awareness. Yet, its philosophy became a political reality in Switzerland, in 1968 and again during the youth disturbances in 1980, and is the inspiration behind present-day opponents of globalisation in their battle against the "Society of the Spectacle”.
The last of the international avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, which was centred in Paris, existed from 1957 to 1972 with a total of seventy-two European, American, and North African members at various times. The guiding figure of the SI was Guy-Ernest Debord (1931–94), the exhibition is organized around his biography.
The SI's revolutionary program included the elimination of all forms of representation: the undermining of all authority, the destruction of all symbols of power, the elimination of art (even that of the Classical avant-garde) and all other forms of cultural spectacle, the regaining of the reality of life that had been expropriated by a society of consumption and commodities—in short, the struggle against late capitalist dispossession.
The rejection of the conventional intellectual discourse, its political radicalness, and also, quite simply, its limited number of members have contributed to the relative obscurity of Guy Debord and the SI outside France. As a consequence, the historical significance of the SI, which operated at the points of intersection between art and politics, is difficult to comprehend even today."
The Situational International
The last of the international avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, which was centred in Paris, existed from 1957 to 1972 with a total of seventy-two European, American, and North African members at various times. The guiding figure of the SI was Guy-Ernest Debord (1931–94), the exhibition is organized around his biography.
The SI's revolutionary program included the elimination of all forms of representation: the undermining of all authority, the destruction of all symbols of power, the elimination of art (even that of the Classical avant-garde) and all other forms of cultural spectacle, the regaining of the reality of life that had been expropriated by a society of consumption and commodities—in short, the struggle against late capitalist dispossession.
The rejection of the conventional intellectual discourse, its political radicalness, and also, quite simply, its limited number of members have contributed to the relative obscurity of Guy Debord and the SI outside France. As a consequence, the historical significance of the SI, which operated at the points of intersection between art and politics, is difficult to comprehend even today."
The Situational International
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