Black Swamp Infozone > a libertarian labyrinth > Situationist International > Reading the SI
Black Swamp Infozone > Culture > Situationist International > Reading the SI
Black Swamp Infozone > Shawn > Works > Reading the SI
Black Swamp Infozone > a libertarian labyrinth > Situationist International > Reading
the SI
Black Swamp Infozone >
Culture > Situationist
International > Reading the SI
Black Swamp Infozone >
Shawn > Works
> Reading the SI
OPENING CAVEATS
Somewhere between all that has been written by and about the situationists and all that might be written, there is a space, I think for this (perhaps minor) intervention - an attempt to determine just how one might use the work of the Situationist International - particularly how one might use the small body of situationist work available in English within the academy, or within the quasi-academic spaces that have opened on the computer networks. One might wish for more, given the current state of politics and the academy, the complexity of the situationists' work and the tangled, much-obscured history out of which it was written: a "definitive" account, perhaps, or at least a thorough overview of situationist writings, not to mention some program to guarantee the critical deployment of situationist theory in the institutional setting. But how seldom our wishes for guarantees are granted. And still we must proceed..
The exigency, the occasion of this "must proceed," is a sort of situationist renaissance, in the academy and in what passes for avant garde spaces in our time - a diffuse event of which this panel must be considered a part. We are bored in the city, in the university, the galleries, the political parties. Our boredom is palpable. There are moments in my classroom - moments of rare honesty - when a student will admit: "Shawn, politics don't interest us. We just don't care about this stuff." But moments of such candor are few and far between, and they strike us as - students and teacher alike - as transgressive. We tremble on the edge of something frightful - as if the only possible revolution was to fully assume our ennui, our alienation. And yet. Out of the ruins of "serious political culture" has risen a strange phoenix - a provocative body of work by writers like Hakim Bey, Bob Black, Stewart Home and Greil Marcus, in which politics appears in a series of everyday provocations, defiances and refusals. And in the background - or sometimes the foreground - of each of these writers' work is the work of the Situationist International. Much of this work is marginal, though not nearly as marginal as the various situationist and pro-situ pamphlets and books that seem to appear in the "alternative" press with ever greater frequency. But the major academic publishers are not missing this boat. Zone Books has recently published newly translated work by Raoul Vaneigem, The Movement of the Free Spirit, as well as a new edition of Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. Routledge published Sadie Plant's study of the situationist movement, The Most Radical Gesture.
For better or worse, "the sits" are hip - both in the halls of academe and elsewhere. It's a situation which "political" academics can hardly allow to pass without some consideration. So today I want to talk just a bit about using the ideas of the Situationist International in those spaces where I spend my "work day" - in the academic setting, and in the new quasi- institutional spaces opening up on the internet. To do so, however, it will be necessary to recount a certain amount of history - a particularly disturbing history of internecine warfare within the ranks of the very group that I hope to draw inspiration from - a very partial history (with all of the ins and outs of partial-ity) of the Situationist International.
Suppose, for a moment that we were to compile "The History of the Situationist Movement." What would it look like, and who would it include? This is not a trivial question If we survey the recent studies by Marcus and Plant, we find that the history of "the situationists" is all too often nearly identical with the history of the French section of the Situationist International, led by Guy Debord. We are treated to a dizzying narrative of alliances, mergers, conflicts and exclusions. We are overwhelmed with possible links, influences, legacies. But the story revolves around Debord's faction. We are, at least implicitly, asked to take the French SI's part - against a host of enemies, be they "nashists," "pro- situs," or "contemplatives." (And, thus, we take Debord's part in opposition to excluded and estranged situationists such as Constant, Jorn, Nash, Chtcheglov, and Vaneigem.) This is far from the whole story and reinforces a particular view of "authentic" situationist work as "political" work, not "merely" the work of an "art movement" - a view which is undoubtedly as much a product of the subsequent histories of the SI (we might say its spectacularization) as it is of the theory or practice of Debord and his faction. Certainly, the "critique of separation" is not so easily placed in one theoretical box or another.
It is worth calling into question this conflation of the French SI and "the situationists." Stewart Home has even gone so far as to claim that the French "specto-situationists" (after Debord's focus on the "spectacle" as the main manifestation of contemporary alienation) were a minority that deviated most severely from the early project of the Situationist International, and he suggests that the much-maligned "nashists" may have been the real heirs of the situationist project. If this is indeed the case, then American readers have been kept almost entirely in the dark about "the situationists." Debord & Co. have effectively cornered the situationist market here.
That there are questions about the "true" history
of the situationist movement - and that there is currently a "situationist
market," particularly among academics - should be reason
enough to tread carefully as we attempt to understand those situationist
texts which are most readily available to us. As academic editions
of selected situationist texts give those texts both a wider circulation
and a new sort of academic legitimacy, we might well want to celebrate
this acknowledgement of the value of situationist theory. At the
same time, we might share the situationist wariness of anything
too successfully integrated into our spectacular
societies.
However, I've run ahead of my project, which is not, finally, to supply the true history or unitary critique of the situationist movement, nor to resolve the issue of whether or not situationist thought can be "saved" from commodification in the "marketplace of ideas." Instead, I want, in as simple a manner as possible, to survey those situationist works that have been available to me, and to consider (in what I hope is an appropriately situationist manner) a variety of ways in which we might use "the situationists." This will be more exploration than explanation, more of a critical appropriation than an exegesis. While wandering through the critical terrain of the situationists, what better tools present themselves than detournment and derive?
"SIRE, I AM FROM THE OTHER COUNTRY"
It is precisely in terms of territories and otherness that I want to (re)approach the SI. All of the "opening caveats" are merely signals that we mustn't assume we are at home among these "situationists." Acknowledging our status as "alien" is a first step toward a critical engagement with an SI given to us by others - an SI translated through transformations of language, but also through participation in systems of commodity production and distribution.
Thus the question: "How does one 'read' the Situationist International?" Any answer will depend on the answers to a range of related questions, most importantly, perhaps, "In what language(s) is the reading to take place?" and "What is a situationist?" If the answer to the first of those questions is "only in English," as was the case for me, and for many American readers of the situationist literature, then the twin spectres of translation and spotty publication will haunt the reading process. English readers will find they only have access to a fairly small selection of situationist writings, and that even these may be unavailable except through "alternative" publishing channels. There is a great deal of situationist writing which has not been translated into English, and those texts that have been translated are almost all the work of the Debordian faction.. Some of the material that has been translated is no longer in print, and is, thus, not widely available. So the student of the situationist movement is forced to journey into the shadow world of "alternative" publishing - where situationist gems are to be found amid a strange and wonderful mix of UFOlogy, Reichiania, erotica, anarchism, avant garde art, survivalism, dirty tricks manuals, and texts that defy classification. Or they must brave the networks of mail artists, plagiarists, ex-Art Strikers, councilists, psychogeographers and the like to find the latter-day "situationists" - who seem to come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and degrees of recuperation by the spectacle.
Need I mention that the journey is its own reward? Perhaps the best reason to study the situationists is to meet other people with similar interests, though frequently much different understandings. Again, one is confronted with the sense of being in a foreign land. But, also, perhaps, you may have the sense of coming home. If nothing else, the situationist-inspired milieus which I have managed to glimpse in my still-short derive through this territory seem to be characterized by a strong desire - by concerted attempts - to live beyond the limits of mere survival. If this is not The Revolution that we might still wish for, it is the space in which the sparks of revolution are kept burning. One needn't, I suppose, venture too deeply into these spaces to purchase a copy of the Situationist International Anthology or The Society of the Spectacle, but I hope by now it is clear how far short of an engagement with "the situationists" or their ideas such "revolutionary consumption" falls. One of the positive effects of the relative obscurity of the SI is that one must actively pursue them, if only through the texts they left behind. But you can never be too sure where the next text will take you - to Marx or to Hegel, to Saint-Just or Machiavelli, perhaps to Lautreamont or to Lafargue. Of course, you may find yourself drifting much farther afield - as Greil Marcus did, following a story that seemed to stretch from early Christian heresies to punk.
Drift can be disconcerting, and, finally, cannot be our total strategy if we wish to act in and upon a world which acknowledges very little which cannot claim structure and specificity. If all we were to do was to follow our bliss through the back alleys of history - however "revolutionary" that history might seem - then we would risk abdicating our roles as revolutionary subjects. At some point - indeed at points all along the way - we must, for better or worse, take the experience and the history that are the products of our driftworks, and make them our own. While the drift may lead us to (re)evaluate our projects - may cut us loose from them in a variety of ways - it is still desirable to have a project. It is simply more difficult, having once learned to drift, to be smug or to claim innocence for our goals. All our rebellions occur within the belly of the very beast we wish to engage. All our protests are spoken in a language which is not wholly our own - is in part the language of the beast that surrounds us.
Under these circumstances, it may be that we are obliged to engage in something like a "continual detournment." That is, we may have little choice but to approach every engagement, every reading, every interaction as a site for struggle and necessary appropriation. Surely, the tools with which we might "make history" are means of production worth seizing again and again.
PROPERTY IS THEFT
And intellectual property is no exception to the rule. If part of our project is finally to make the products of our explorations "our own," how do we avoid speaking the language of capital and the commodity form? Perhaps, finally, we can't avoid this fate. However, the most interesting, dangerous, and perhaps most promising, forms of detournment are precisely those which attempt to use the master's tools against themselves. We can, for instance steal (from/within) the language of theft.
Plagiarism is necessary. "Progress" - to the extent that that specter still speaks to us - implies it. The plagiarist presses after an author's phrase, uses his or her expressions, erases a suspect idea, replaces it or amends it. The plagiarist respects the terms of the stolen discourse only in an ironic, blasphemous fashion. This is what detournment is about - finding the means by which the spectacle can be turned against itself, made to speak its own destruction.
Everything that is to be "liberated" must be taken, stolen, diverted - even the Situationist International. This may seem ironic, or it may seem only the most logical extension of their revolutionary theory. In any event, and without assuming any sort of innocence or safety with regard to the process, we are obliged to detourn the SI if we are to engage with it in any way that is not wholly given to us by someone else. Revolutionary "progress" demands it, just as it demanded the detournment of Lautreamont and the Surrealists in Debord's work.
"NOW, THE SI."
This much of the history of the situationists seems clear. Debord believed that an organization like the SI must be a "conspiracy of equals." Otherwise, it would be vulnerable to the imposition of "stars" or "leaders" from the outside, through which it could be coopted or discredited. It was on the basis of this theory that the SI, dominated by Debord's standards of appropriately revolutionary behavior engaged in its history of exclusions and schisms. It is perhaps ironic that one of the results of this attempt to maintain "equality" was the final elevation of Debord to situationist stardom. By the time of the "veritable split" within the SI, it appears that perhaps only SI member remained besides Debord and Sanguinetti. In such a reduced company, stardom - or at least particular attention to a few members - hardly seems avoidable. Within a decade, even Debord and Sanguinetti severed relations. Debord, having already withdrawn his films from circulation, himself withdrew from public view.
This specter had been haunting the SI from its very beginning. Debord's awareness of the need for a certain sort of "equality" - specifically a shared commitment to the unitary critique of culture - lends itself to an unfortunate emphasis on the "purity" of the movement. That is, the desire to focus all of the SI's resources on total critique means that certain elements of the movement itself had to be dispensed with. The desire to critique separation led to the increasing isolation of the shrinking Debordian faction from potential allies. In the name of theory (as opposed to ideology), the core of the SI was driven increasingly towards dogmatism. The final, auto-destructive, self-critique was an attempt to move beyond this tendency by pushing "through" it. By turning its withering critical gaze on its last remaining members, who would assume their share of blame for the shortcomings of the SI, the movement would "realize and suppress" its own critique, pushing it to a higher level. The Situationist International would fade, but the unitary critique would be the business of all.
Was this maneuver a success? For instance, are the films of Debord more powerful in their absence than they could be in their widest circulation - or do they merely provide a sort of spectacle of disappearance and refusal? If we grant the specto- faction its own, historically sound reasons for organizing itself as it did - and certainly we might - must we who follow, follow faithfully in its footsteps? Must we follow Debord into a kind of exile, or shall we understand the end of the SI as the death of a phoenix, as the "realization and suppression" of the situationist project, as the movement trumping itself? As should be obvious, I choose the latter interpretation, though not without reservations. In doing so, I am responding to what I perceive as the political exigencies of our own time - the need for histories, instead of History. It is a choice which discourages either idolatry or complete repudiation. It is a choice which, at least of the level of revolutionary theory, brings the struggle home.
. . .IN OUR TIME
If we are to use the Situationist International - that is, if we are to take advantage of the current vogue of situationist and situ-inspired political theory and agitation - it must be with our eyes wide open the the ways in which the situationists themselves often fell short of their stated goals, betrayed their desire for a unitary critique. With that in mind, perhaps the most promising path is simply to follow the fascination deeper into the works of the SI - following the footnotes in the books by Marcus and Plant is a good way to start. For example, any attempt to place the work of the French situationists in an intellectual/philosophical context quickly leads one onto a field of familiar names - Baudrillard, Castoriadis, Lefebvre, Lyotard, Lefort, Marcuse, Marx, Reich. But there are also the artistic threads to trace - through Isou's Lettrism, the work of Cobra, the later urbanism of Constant, the "lost" Situationist Bauhaus of the "nashists," forward into Neoism and the Art Strike, as well as back into Dada, Futurism, etc... The theoretic tradition of council communism, which the situationists borrowed from Socialism or Barbarism, is yet another rich, under-explored field. What are the relations, the lines of influence, between the SI and various "postmodernisms"? Were the situationists anarchists? Were they communists? What of Debord's use of Hegel?
Perhaps what is most intriguing - and thus useful in this era
of political exhaustion - is the tremendous number of questions
and explorations that the situationists call us to address or
attempt. At the same time, they mark for us that moment of great
loss that is May '68, and present us with a sort of cautionary
tale of "revolutionary" infighting and self-destruction.
The situationists themselves - in all of their folly, in all of
their drunkeness, in all of their theoretical sophistication -
clearly were responding to a complex and urgent set of such calls.
Shall we do less? And shall we
respond so well, so bravely?
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copyleft 1994 shawn p. wilbur
spread the meme, don't sell it
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email: swilbur @ wcnet.org