Situationist International

The Situationists were an international political and artistic movement founded in the Italian village of Cosio d'Arroscia in July 1957. Situationists defined "Situationist" as;

"Having to do with the theory or practical activity of constructing situations"

and "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"

-from Internationale Situationiste No 1, June 1958.

Inspired by the workers councils that sprung up during the 1956 Hungarian uprisings, Situationism has its intellectual origins in the amalgamation of the Lettrists with the Movement For An Imaginary Bauhaus, as well as influences from COBRA, Dada, Surrealism and Fluxus. Members included Guy Debord, Asger Jorn, Ralph Rumney, Alexander Trocchi and Raoul Vaneigem.

(more about origins/intelectual basis of situationism to go in here)

During it's twelve year history, the Situationist International attempted to develop a syncretic viewpoint of society while at the same time savaging it. This development reached its logical corollary in the May 1968 uprisings.

[need paragraph on SI involvement in May 68, including occupation of the Sorbonne by the situs & Enrages...]

The SI was dissolved in 1972, but despite their membership never having risen above 40 at any one time (and sometimes numbering as few as 10), the importance of situationist ideas have continued to echo profoundly through many aspects of culture and politics in Europe and the USA.

The Situationist movement was 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. This was largely due to the Situ-literate inputs of Malcolm Mclaren, Vivienne Westwood and particularly Jamie Reid into the marketing and imagery of the Sex Pistols.

Situationist ideas can also be traced within the development of other radical currents within society such as the Angry Brigade, Class War and more recent Reclaim The Streets and Ad-Busters campaigns.

Classic Situationist texts include "Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord (the original edition of which featured a sandpaper cover, the idea being that this would destroy the books on either side of it on the shelf, a metaphor for the supercesion of 'old ideas' by the radicalism of situationism), "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. Many of the original Situationist texts tend to be rather dense and inaccesable, 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.

Ideas central to situationist theory include those of;

The Spectacular society; "We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience."- Larry Law, from Images And Everyday Life, a 'Spectacular Times' pocket book.

"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

The situationists would argue that by means of the spectacular society, all aspects of our culture and experience is mediated in order to disguise and protect the interests of those who hold real power.

Recuperation; "To survive, the spectacle must have social control. It can recuperate a potentially threatening situation by shifting ground, creating dazzling alternatives- or by embracing the threat, making it safe and then selling it back to us"- Larry Law, from The Spectacle- The Skeleton Keys, a 'Spectacular Times pocket book.

"Ha! You think it's funny? Turning rebellion into money?"- The Clash, White Man In The Hammersmith Palais.

Recuperation is the process by which the spectacle takes a radical or revolutionary idea and repackages it as a saleable commodity. An ironic example of recuperation, it could be argued, was the 1989 Situationist exhibition at the ICA gallery in London's Mall, wherin both original situationist manifestos, and contemporary pro-situ influenced works (records, fanzines, samizdat-style leaflets and propaganda) were presented as museum artifacts for the mass consumption of the art establishment.

Detournment; "short for: detournment of pre-existing aesthetic elements. The integration of past or present artistic production into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of these means.", Internationale Situationiste issue 1, June 1958.

Detournment could be said to be the opposite side of the coin to 'recuperation' (where radical ideas and images are made safe and commodified), in that images produced by the spectacle are altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning is changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositionist agenda. Such a pro-situ technique can be seen in action in the present day when looking at the work of Culture Jammers such as Ad Busters 1, whose 'subvertisments' 'detourn' Nike adverts, for example, using their imagery to draw attention to said company's policy of shifting their production base to cheap labour cost third world 'Free trade Zone]]s'. However, it can be a thin (or at least very fuzzy) line between 'recuperation' and 'detournment' at times, as Naomi Klein points out in her book No Logo. Here she details how Culture Jammers and Ad Busters have been approached (sometimes successfully) by corporations such as Nike and offered lucrative contracts in return for partaking in 'ironic' promotional campaigns. She points up further irony by drawing attention to merchandising produced in order to promote Ad Busters' Buy Nothing day.

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Above; anonymous Situationist graphic, circa 1968

Quotes

"It is forbidden to forbid"- Il est interdit d'interdire - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968

"Be realistic- demand the impossible!"- Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible! - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968

"Beneath the pavement- the beach!"- Sous les pavés, la plage! - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968

"People who talk about revolution and class struggle without refering explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth"- Raoul Vaneigem, "The Revolution Of Everyday Life"

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