Guy Debord and the Situationist International: texts and documents

Abstract

"This volume is a revised and expanded version of a special issue of the journal October (winter 1997) that was devoted to the work of the Situationist International (SI). The first section of the issue contained previously unpublished critical texts, and the second section contained translations of primary texts that previously had been unavailable in English. The emphasis was on the SI's profound engagement with the art and cultural politics of their time (1957-1972), with a strong argument for their primarily political and activist stance by two former members of the group, T.J. Clark and Donald Nicholson-Smith. Guy Debord and the Situationist International supplements both sections. It reprints important, hard-to-find essays by Giorgio Agamben, Libero Andreotti, Jonathan Crary, Thomas Y. Levin, Greil Marcus, and Tom McDonough and doubles the number of translations of primary texts, which now encompass a broader and more representative range of the SI's writings on culture and language. In a field still dominated by hagiography, the critical texts were selected for their willingness to confront critically the history and legacy of the SI. They examine the group within the broader framework of the historical and neo-avant-gardes and, beyond that, the postwar world in general. The translations trace the SI's reflections on the legacy of the avant-garde in art and architecture, particularly on the linguistic and spatial significance of montage aesthetics. Many of the translated works are by Guy Debord (1932-1994), the impresario of the SI, especially known for his book The Society of the Spectacle"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Introduction : ideology and the situationist utopia / Tom McDonough -- The long walk of the Situationist International / Greil Marcus -- The great sleep and its clients (1955) / Guy Debord -- One step back / Guy Debord -- Report on the construction of situations and on the terms of organization and action of the International Situationist tendency (1957) / Guy Debord -- One more try if you want to be situationists (the SI in and against decomposition) (1957) / Guy Debord -- Theses on cultural revolution (1958) / Guy Debord. Contribution to the debate "Is surrealism dead or alive?" (1958) / Guy Debord -- In praise of Pinot-Gallizio (1958) / Michele Bernstein -- Comments against urbanism (1961) / Raoul Vaneigem -- The situationists and the new forms of action in politics or art (1963) / Guy Debord -- Perspectives for a generatrion (1966) / Theo Frey -- Captive words (preface to a situationist dictionary) (1966) / Mustapha Khayati -- The situationists and the new forms of action against politics and art (1967) / Rene Vienet -- Asger Jorn's avant-garde archives / Claire Gilman. Architecture and play / Libero Andreotti -- Situationist space / Tom McDonough -- Lefebvre on the situationists : an interview / Kristin Ross -- Angels of purity / Vincent Kauffman -- Difference and repetition : on Guy Debord's films / Giorgio Agamben -- Dismantling the spectacle : the cinema of Guy Debord / Thomas Y. Levin -- Spectacle, attention, counter-memory / Jonathan Crary -- Why art can't kill the Situationist International / T.J. Clark and Donald Nicholson-Smith -- Letter [to the editors by film theorist and filmmaker Peter Wollen] and response.