❤️ Paul Hogan (disambiguation) 🔥

"Paul Hogan (born 1939) is an Australian actor. Paul Hogan may also refer to: * Paul Hogan (butler) (21st century), Australian diplomat turned celebrity butler (Joe Millionaire) * Paul Hogan (American football) (1898–1976), American football player * Paul Hogan (darts player) (born 1963), English darts player * P. J. Hogan (born 1962), Australian film director * J. Paul Hogan (1919–2012), American chemist (plastics inventor) "

❤️ Yehudi Menuhin 🔥

"Menuhin in 1937 Signature of Yehudi Menuhin Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, (22 April 191612 March 1999) was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the great violinists of the 20th century. He played the Soil Stradivarius, considered one of the finest violins made by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari. Early life and career Menuhin with Bruno Walter (1931) Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Lithuanian Jews. Through his father Moshe, a former rabbinical student and anti- Zionist,Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin, pp. 11, 158, 190 he was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty. In late 1919, Moshe and his wife Marutha (née Sher) became American citizens, and changed the family name from Mnuchin to Menuhin.Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin, p. 18 Menuhin's sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah. Menuhin's first violin instruction was at age four by Sigmund Anker (1891–1958); his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to teach him, but Persinger refused. Menuhin displayed exceptional musical talent at an early age. His first public appearance, when he was seven years old, was as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923. Persinger then agreed to teach him and accompanied him on the piano for his first few solo recordings in 1928–29. Julia Boyd records: > On 12 April 1929 it [the Semperoper] cancelled its advertised programme to > make way for a performance by the twelve-year-old Yehudi Menuhin. That night > he played the Bach, Beethoven and Brahms violin concertos to an ecstatic > audience... The week before, Yehudi had played in Berlin with the > Philharmonic under Bruno Walter to an equally rapturous response.Julia Boyd, > Travellers in the Third Reich, Elliott and Thompson Limited, London, 2018, , > page 73, paraphrasing Edward Sackville-West It was said of his Berlin performance: "There steps a fat little blond boy on the podium, and wins at once all hearts as in an irresistibly ludicrous way, like a penguin, he alternately places one foot down, then the other. But wait: you will stop laughing when he puts his bow to the violin to play Bach's violin concerto in E major no.2."Unnamed critic in the Berliner Zeitung, 12 April 1929, quoted in translation in Boyd, page 73 The city of Basel: place of study under the guidance of Adolf Busch When the Menuhins moved to Paris, Persinger suggested Menuhin go to Persinger's old teacher, Belgian virtuoso and pedagogue Eugène Ysaÿe. Menuhin did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but he disliked Ysaÿe's teaching method and his advanced age. Instead, he went to Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, under whose tutelage he made recordings with several piano accompanists, including his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Adolf Busch in Basel. He stayed in the Swiss city for a bit more than a year, where he started to take lessons in German and Italian as well. According to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote: His first concerto recording was made in 1931, Bruch's G minor, under Sir Landon Ronald in London, the labels calling him "Master Yehudi Menuhin". In 1932 he recorded Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in Bminor for HMV in London, with the composer himself conducting; in 1934, uncut, Paganini's D major Concerto with Emile Sauret's cadenza in Paris under Pierre Monteux. Between 1934 and 1936, he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, although his Sonata No. 2, in A minor, was not released until all six were transferred to CD. His interest in the music of Béla Bartók prompted him to commission a work from him – the Sonata for Solo Violin, which, completed in 1943 and first performed by Menuhin in New York in 1944, was the composer's penultimate work. World War II musician Menuhin in 1943 He performed for Allied soldiers during World War II and, accompanied on the piano by English composer Benjamin Britten, for the surviving inmates of a number of concentration camps in July 1945 after their liberation in April of the same year, most famously the Bergen-Belsen. He returned to Germany in 1947 to play concerto concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, the first Jewish musician to do so in the wake of the Holocaust, saying to Jewish critics that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany's music and spirit. He and Louis Kentner (brother-in-law of his wife, Diana) gave the first performance of William Walton's Violin Sonata, in Zürich on 30 September 1949. He continued performing, and conducting (such as Bach orchestral works with the Bath Chamber Orchestra), to an advanced age, including some nonclassical music in his repertory. World interactions Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with "a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life".Conversations with Menuhin: 32–34 Following his role as a member of the awards jury at the 1955 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, Menuhin secured a Rockefeller Foundation grant for the financially strapped Grand Prize winner at the event, Argentine violinist Alberto Lysy. Menuhin made Lysy his only personal student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established the International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA) in Gstaad, in his honor. Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany. In 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He also established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received an honorary knighthood from the British monarchy. In the same year, Australian composer Malcolm Williamson wrote a violin concerto for Menuhin. He performed the concerto many times and recorded it at its premiere at the Bath Festival in 1965. Originally known as the Bath Assembly, the festival was first directed by the impresario Ian Hunter in 1948. After the first year the city tried to run the festival itself, but in 1955 asked Hunter back. In 1959 Hunter invited Menuhin to become artistic director of the festival. Menuhin accepted, and retained the post until 1968. Menuhin also had a long association with Ravi Shankar, beginning in 1966 with their joint performance at the Bath Festival and the recording of their Grammy Award- winning album West Meets East (1967). During this time, he commissioned composer Alan Hovhaness to write a concerto for violin, sitar, and orchestra to be performed by himself and Shankar. The resulting work, entitled Shambala (c. 1970), with a fully composed violin part and space for improvisation from the sitarist, is the earliest known work for sitar with western symphony orchestra, predating Shankar's own sitar concertos, but Menuhin and Shankar never recorded it. Menuhin also worked with famous jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli in the 1970s on Jalousie, an album of 1930s classics led by duetting violins backed by the Alan Claire Trio. In 1975, in his role as president of the International Music Council, he declared October 1 as International Music Day. The first International Music Day, organised by the International Music Council, was held that same year, in accordance with the resolution taken at the 15th IMC General Assembly in Lausanne in 1973. In 1977, Menuhin and Ian Stoutzker founded the charity Live Music Now, the largest outreach music project in the UK. Live Music Now pays and trains professional musicians to work in the community, bringing the experience to those who rarely get an opportunity to hear or see live music performance. At the Edinburgh Festival Menuhin premiered Priaulx Rainier's violin concerto Due Canti e Finale, which he had commissioned Rainier to write. He also commissioned her last work, Wildlife Celebration, which he performed in aid of Gerald Durrell's Wildlife Conservation Trust. In 1983, Menuhin and Robert Masters founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, today one of the world's leading forums for young talent. Many of its prizewinners have gone on to become prominent violinists, including Tasmin Little, Nikolaj Znaider, Ilya Gringolts, Julia Fischer, Daishin Kashimoto and Ray Chen. In the 1980s, Menuhin wrote and oversaw the creation of a "Music Guides" series of books; each covered a musical instrument, with one on the human voice. Menuhin wrote some, while others were edited by different authors. In 1991, Menuhin was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government. In the Israeli Knesset he gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank: > This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of > life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very > last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful > significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is > unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code > of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a > society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing > of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them."Wolf > Prize winner raps government". Jerusalem Post, 6 May 1991. Later career Stéphane Grappelli (left) with Menuhin in 1976 Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. One of the more memorable later performances was of Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto, which Menuhin had recorded with the composer in 1932. On 22 April 1978, along with Stéphane Grappelli, Yehudi played Pick Yourself Up, taken from the Menuhin & Grappelli Play Berlin, Kern, Porter and Rodgers & Hart album as the interval act at the 23rd Eurovision Song Contest for TF1. The performance came direct from the studios of TF1 and not that of the venue (Palais des Congrès), where the contest was being held. Menuhin hosted the PBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the San Francisco Symphony from Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980. His recording contract with EMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999, when he was nearly 83 years old. He recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor. In 2009 EMI released a 51-CD retrospective of Menuhin's recording career, titled Yehudi Menuhin: The Great EMI Recordings. In 2016, the Menuhin centenary year, Warner Classics (formerly EMI Classics) issued a milestone collection of 80 CDs entitled The Menuhin Century, curated by his long-time friend and protégé Bruno Monsaingeon, who selected the recordings and sourced rare archival materials to tell Menuhin's story. In 1990 Menuhin was the first conductor for the Asian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong with Julian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia. Personal life Menuhin and author Paulo Coelho in 1999 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Menuhin was married twice, first to Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist and sister of Hephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. They had two children, Krov and Zamira (who married pianist Fou Ts'ong). Following their 1947 divorce he married the British ballerina and actress Diana Gould, whose mother was the pianist Evelyn Suart and stepfather was Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt. The couple had two sons, Gerard, notable as a Holocaust denier and far right activist, and Jeremy, a pianist. A third child died shortly after birth. The name Yehudi means "Jew" in Hebrew. In an interview republished in October 2004, he recounted to New Internationalist magazine the story of his name: Menuhin died in Martin Luther Hospital in Berlin, Germany, from complications of bronchitis. Soon after his death, the Royal Academy of Music acquired the Yehudi Menuhin Archive, which includes sheet music marked up for performance, correspondence, news articles and photographs relating to Menuhin, autograph musical manuscripts, and several portraits of Paganini.Yehudi Menuhin Archive Saved For The Nation 26 February 2004, TourDates.Co.UK, retrieved 28 September 2013. Interest in yoga In 1953, Life published photos of him in various esoteric yoga positions. In 1952, Menuhin was in India, where Nehru, the new nation's first Prime Minister, introduced him to an influential yogi B. K. S. Iyengar, who was largely unknown outside the country. Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to teach abroad in London, Switzerland, Paris, and elsewhere. He became one of the first prominent yoga masters teaching in the West. Menuhin also took lessons from Indra Devi, who opened the first yoga studio in the U.S. in Los Angeles in 1948. Both Devi and Iyengar were students of Krishnamacharya, a famous yoga master in India. Violins Menuhin used a number of famous violins, arguably the most renowned of which is the Lord Wilton Guarnerius 1742. Others included the Giovanni Bussetto 1680, Giovanni Grancino 1695, Guarneri filius Andrea 1703, Soil Stradivarius, Prince Khevenhüller 1733 Stradivari, and Guarneri del Gesù 1739. In his autobiography Unfinished Journey Mehunin wrote: "A great violin is alive; its very shape embodies its maker's intentions, and its wood stores the history, or the soul, of its successive owners. I never play without feeling that I have released or, alas, violated spirits." Awards and honours * Freedom of the City (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1965). * Appointed to the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1965. At the time of his appointment, he was an American citizen. As a result, his knighthood was honorary and he was not entitled to use the style 'Sir'. In 1993, he became The Right Honourable The Lord Menuhin, OM, KBE (see below). * The Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding (1968). * Became President of the International Music Council (1969–1975) * Became President of Trinity College of Music (now Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance), 1970. * The Léonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark, 1972). * Nominated as president of the Elgar Society (1983). * The Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1984). * The Kennedy Center Honors (1986). * Appointed as a member of the Order of Merit (1987). * His recording of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor with Julian Lloyd Webber won the 1987 BRIT Award for Best British Classical Recording (BBC Music Magazine named this recording "the finest version ever recorded"). * The Glenn Gould Prize (1990), in recognition of his lifetime of contributions. * Wolf Prize in Arts (1991). * Ambassador of Goodwill (UNESCO, 1992). * On 19 July 1993, Menuhin was made a life peer, as Baron Menuhin, of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey. * Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship the highest honour conferred by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama (1994). * The Konex Decoration (Konex Foundation, Argentina, 1994). * The Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin (1997). * Honorary Doctorates from 20 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Bath (1969). * The room in which concerts and performances are held at the European Parliament in Brussels is named the "Yehudi Menuhin Space". * Menuhin was honored as a "Freeman" of the cities of Edinburgh, Bath, Reims and Warsaw. * He held the Gold Medals of the cities of Paris, New York and Jerusalem. * Honorary degree from Kalamazoo College. * Elected an Honorary Fellow of Fitzwilliam College in 1991. * He received the 1997 Prince of Asturias Award in the Concord category along with Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. * In 1997, he received the Grand Cross 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. * On 15 May 1998, Menuhin received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint James of the Sword (Portugal). Cultural references * The catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" popular in the 1930s and 1940s was inspired by Menuhin's guest appearance on a radio show, where Jerry Colonna turned "Yehoodi" into a widely recognized slang term for a mysteriously absent person. It eventually lost all of its original connection with Menuhin. * Menuhin was also "meant" to appear on The 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show but could not do so as he was "opening at the Argyle Theatre, Birkenhead in Old King Cole". He was replaced by Eric Morecambe in the famous "Grieg's Piano Concerto by Grieg" sketch featuring the conductor André Previn; he was also invited to appear on their 1973 Christmas Show to play his "banjo" as they said playing his violin would not be any good; he ruefully said that "I can't help you". * A picture of Menuhin as a child is sometimes used as part of a Thematic Apperception Test. Bibliography Films * 1943 – Menuhin was a featured performer in the 1943 film, Stage Door Canteen. Introduced only as "Mr. Menuhin," he performed two violin solos, "Ave Maria" and "Flight of the Bumble Bee" for an audience of servicemen, volunteer hostesses and celebrities from stage and screen. * 1946 – Menuhin supplied the violin solos in the film The Magic Bow. * 1979 – The Music of Man (television series) * The Mind of Music References External links Yehudi Menuhin performing works by Bach, Bartók, Lalo, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Paganini and Tchaikovsky on Archive.org * Yehudi Menuhin interview, 31 January 1987 * Text and pictures from Yehudi Menuhin by french film director Bruno Monsaingeon * Yehudi Menuhin's life in Alma * Yehudi Menuhin Collection (ARS.0040), Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound 1916 births 1999 deaths American emigrants to England American emigrants to Switzerland British emigrants to Switzerland Naturalised citizens of Switzerland Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent English people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Swiss people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American classical violinists Male classical violinists English classical violinists Jewish classical violinists Swiss classical violinists American male conductors (music) English conductors (music) British male conductors (music) Swiss conductors (music) Male conductors (music) Conductors (music) awarded knighthoods EMI Classics and Virgin Classics artists Ernst von Siemens Music Prize winners Fellows of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Glenn Gould Prize winners Grammy Award winners Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint James of the Sword Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Jewish American classical musicians Kennedy Center honorees Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Life peers Members of the Order of Merit Musicians awarded knighthoods Musicians who were peers Recipients of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Wolf Prize in Arts laureates UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors People from Stoke d'Abernon 20th-century American conductors (music) 20th-century classical violinists 20th-century American male musicians "

❤️ Situationist International 🔥

"The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from anti-authoritarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism. The situationists recognized that capitalism had changed since Karl Marx's formative writings, but maintained that his analysis of the capitalist mode of production remained fundamentally correct; they rearticulated and expanded upon several classical Marxist concepts, such as his theory of alienation. In their expanded interpretation of Marxist theory, the situationists asserted that the misery of social alienation and commodity fetishism were no longer limited to the fundamental components of capitalist society, but had now in advanced capitalism spread themselves to every aspect of life and culture. They rejected the idea that advanced capitalism's apparent successes—such as technological advancement, increased income, and increased leisure—could ever outweigh the social dysfunction and degradation of everyday life that it simultaneously inflicted. Essential to situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, a unified critique of advanced capitalism of which a primary concern was the progressively increasing tendency towards the expression and mediation of social relations through objects. The situationists believed that the shift from individual expression through directly lived experiences, or the first-hand fulfillment of authentic desires, to individual expression by proxy through the exchange or consumption of commodities, or passive second- hand alienation, inflicted significant and far-reaching damage to the quality of human life for both individuals and society. Another important concept of situationist theory was the primary means of counteracting the spectacle; the construction of situations, moments of life deliberately constructed for the purpose of reawakening and pursuing authentic desires, experiencing the feeling of life and adventure, and the liberation of everyday life.Guy Debord (1958) Definitions. Internationale Situationniste No. 1 (Paris, June 1958). Translated by Ken Knabb. When the Situationist International was first formed, it had a predominantly artistic focus; emphasis was placed on concepts like unitary urbanism and psychogeography. Gradually, however, that focus shifted more towards revolutionary and political theory. The Situationist International reached the apex of its creative output and influence in 1967 and 1968, with the former marking the publication of the two most significant texts of the situationist movement, The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. The expressed writing and political theory of the two aforementioned texts, along with other situationist publications, proved greatly influential in shaping the ideas behind the May 1968 insurrections in France; quotes, phrases, and slogans from situationist texts and publications were ubiquitous on posters and graffiti throughout France during the uprisings. Etymology and usage The term "situationist" refers to the construction of situations, one of the early central concepts of the Situationist International; the term also refers to any individuals engaged in the construction of situations, or, more narrowly, to members of the Situationist International. Situationist theory sees the situation as a tool for the liberation of everyday life, a method of negating the pervasive alienation that accompanied the spectacle. The founding manifesto of the Situationist International, Report on the Construction of Situations (1957), defined the construction of situations as "the concrete construction of momentary ambiances of life and their transformation into a superior passional quality." Internationale Situationniste No. 1 (June 1958) defined the constructed situation as "a moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of a unitary ambiance and a game of events". The situationists argued that advanced capitalism manufactured false desires; literally in the sense of ubiquitous advertising and the glorification of accumulated capital, and more broadly in the abstraction and reification of the more ephemeral experiences of authentic life into commodities. The experimental direction of situationist activity consisted of setting up temporary environments favorable to the fulfillment of true and authentic human desires in response.Guy Debord (1958) Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation. Internationale Situationniste No. 1 (Paris, June 1958). Translated by Ken Knabb. The Situationist International strongly resisted use of the term "situationism", which Debord called a "meaningless term", adding "[t]here is no such thing as situationism, which would mean a doctrine for interpreting existing conditions". The situationists maintained a philosophical opposition to all ideologies, conceiving of them as abstract superstructures ultimately serving only to justify the economic base of a given society; accordingly, they rejected "situationism" as an absurd and self-contradictory concept.Raoul Vaneigem (1967) Traité du savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations. (Paris, June 1967). Chapter 1: The Insignificant Signified. In The Society of the Spectacle, Debord asserted that ideology was "the abstract will to universality and the illusion thereof" which was "legitimated in modern society by universal abstraction and by the effective dictatorship of illusion". Guy Debord (1967) Society of the Spectacle. (Paris, June 1967). Chapter IX: Ideology in Material Form. History Origins (1945–1955) The situationist movement had its origins as a left wing tendency within Lettrism,Report on the Construction of Situations (1957) an artistic and literary movement led by the Romanian-born French poet and visual artist Isidore Isou, originating in 1940s Paris. The group was heavily influenced by the preceding avant-garde movements of Dadaism and Surrealism, seeking to apply critical theories based on these concepts to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and political theory. Among some of the concepts and artistic innovations developed by the Lettrists were the lettrie, a poem reflecting pure form yet devoid of all semantic content, new syntheses of writing and visual art identified as metagraphics and hypergraphics, as well as new creative techniques in filmmaking. Future situationist Guy Debord, who was at that time a significant figure in the Lettrist movement, helped develop these new film techniques, using them in his Lettrist film Howlings for Sade (1952) as well as later in his situationist film Society of the Spectacle (1972). By 1950, a much younger and more left-wing part of the Lettrist movement began to emerge. This group kept very active in perpetrating public outrages such as the Notre- Dame Affair, where at the Easter High Mass at Notre Dame de Paris, in front of ten thousand people and broadcast on national TV, their member and former Dominican Michel Mourre posed as a monk, "stood in front of the altar and read a pamphlet proclaiming that God was dead".Horn (2007), p. 8Greil Marcus (1989) Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, preview at Google books, pp. 279–86 André Breton prominently came out in support of the action in a letter that spawned a large debate in the newspaper Combat.Boucharenc, Myriam (2005) L'universel reportage, pp. 94–6Breton, André (1950) Lettre a Louis Pauwels" sur le «"scandale" de Notre Dame», in Combat, 12 April 1950, OC III, pp. 1024–5 In 1952, this left wing of the Lettrist movement, which included Debord, broke off from Isou's group and formed the Letterist International, a new Paris-based collective of avant-garde artists and political theorists. The schism finally erupted when the future members of the radical Lettrists disrupted a Charlie Chaplin press conference for Limelight at the Hôtel Ritz Paris. They distributed a polemic entitled "No More Flat Feet!", which concluded: "The footlights have melted the make-up of the supposedly brilliant mime. All we can see now is a lugubrious and mercenary old man. Go home Mister Chaplin."Serge Berna, Jean-Louis Brau, Guy Debord & Gil J. Wolman (1952) No More Flat Feet!. Internationale Lettriste No. 1 (Paris, November 1952). Translated by Ken Knabb. Emphasis in original. Isou was upset with this, his own attitude being that Chaplin deserved respect as one of the great creators of the cinematic art. The breakaway group felt that his work was no longer relevant, while having appreciated it "in its own time," and asserted their belief "that the most urgent expression of freedom is the destruction of idols, especially when they claim to represent freedom," in this case, filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.(1952) Position of the Lettrist International. Internationale Lettriste No. 1 (Paris, November 1952). Translated by Ken Knabb. During this period of the Letterist International, many of the important concepts and ideas that would later be integral in situationist theory were developed. Individuals in the group collaboratively constructed the new field of psychogeography, which they defined as "the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment (whether consciously organized or not) on the emotions and behavior of individuals."Guy Debord (1955) Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Les Lèvres Nues No. 6 (Paris, September 1955). Translated by Ken Knabb. Debord further expanded this concept of psychogeography with his theory of the dérive, an unplanned tour through an urban landscape directed entirely by the feelings evoked in the individual by their surroundings, serving as the primary means for mapping and investigating the psychogeography of these different areas.Guy Debord (1956) Theory of the Dérive. Les Lèvres Nues No. 9 (Paris, November 1956). Reprinted in Internationale Situationniste No. 2 (Paris, December 1958). Translated by Ken Knabb. During this period the Letterist International also developed the situationist tactic of détournement, which by reworking or re-contextualizing an existing work of art or literature sought to radically shift its meaning to one with revolutionary significance. Formation (1956–1957) In 1956, Guy Debord, a member of the Lettrist International, and Asger Jorn of the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, brought together a group of artistic collectives for the First World Congress of Free Artists in Alba, Italy.Horn (2007), pp. 5–7, 42 The meeting established the foundation for the development of the Situationist International, which was officially formed in July 1957 at a meeting in Cosio di Arroscia, Italy. The resulting International was a fusion of these extremely small avant-garde collectives: the Lettrist International, the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (an offshoot of COBRA), and the London Psychogeographical Association (though, Anselm Jappe has argued that the group pivoted around Jorn and Debord for the first four years).Anselm Jappe, 1999, p. 65 quotation: :For the first four years of the SI's existence, the pivot of the group was the collaboration between Debord and Asger Jorn, who complemented each other well precisely because they were so different. Later, the Situationist International drew ideas from other groups such as Socialisme ou Barbarie. The most prominent member of the group, Guy Debord, generally became considered the organization's de facto leader and most distinguished theorist. Other members included theorist Raoul Vaneigem, the Dutch painter Constant Nieuwenhuys, the Italo-Scottish writer Alexander Trocchi, the English artist Ralph Rumney (sole member of the London Psychogeographical Association, Rumney suffered expulsion relatively soon after the formation), the Danish artist Asger Jorn (who after parting with the SI also founded the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism), the architect and veteran of the Hungarian Uprising Attila Kotanyi, and the French writer Michele Bernstein. Debord and Bernstein later married. In June 1957, Debord wrote the manifesto of the Situationist International, titled Report on the Construction of Situations. This manifesto plans a systematic rereading of Karl Marx's Das Kapital and advocates a cultural revolution in western countries.Guy Debord (1957) Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency's Conditions of Organization and Action. (Paris, June 1957). Translated by Ken Knabb. Artistic period (1958–1962) Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author Asger Jorn, founding member of the Situationist International. During the first few years of the SI's founding, avant-garde artistic groups began collaborating with the SI and joining the organization. Gruppe SPUR, a German artistic collective, collaborated with the Situationist International on projects beginning in 1959, continuing until the group officially joined the SI in 1961. The role of the artists in the SI was of great significance, particularly Asger Jorn, Constant Nieuwenhuys and Pinot Gallizio. Asger Jorn, who invented Situgraphy and Situlogy, had the social role of catalyst and team leader among the members of the SI between 1957 and 1961. Jorn's role in the situationist movement (as in COBRA) was that of a catalyst and team leader. Guy Debord on his own lacked the personal warmth and persuasiveness to draw people of different nationalities and talents into an active working partnership. As a prototype Marxist intellectual Debord needed an ally who could patch up the petty egoisms and squabbles of the members. When Jorn's leadership was withdrawn in 1961, many simmering quarrels among different sections of the SI flared up, leading to multiple exclusions. Internationale situationniste The first major split was the exclusion of Gruppe SPUR, the German section, from the SI on 10 February 1962.(1963) The Exclusion of the Spurists. Internationale Situationniste No. 8 (Paris, January 1963). Translated by Ken Knabb. Many different disagreements led to the fracture, for example; while at the Fourth SI Conference in London in December 1960, in a discussion about the political nature of the SI, the Gruppe SPUR members disagreed with the core situationist stance of counting on a revolutionary proletariat;The Fourth SI Conference in London , Internationale Situationniste No. 5 (December 1960) the accusation that their activities were based on a "systematic misunderstanding of situationist theses"; the understanding that at least one Gruppe SPUR member, sculptor Lothar Fischer, and possibly the rest of the group, were not actually understanding and/or agreeing with the situationist ideas, but were just using the SI to achieve success in the art market.Nothing to talk about key, Halil Altindere and Sezgin Boynik (editors) the betrayal, in the Spur #7 issue, of a common agreement on the Gruppe SPUR and SI publications.The Fifth SI Conference in Göteborg , Internationale Situationniste No. 7 (April 1962)Letter from Guy Debord and Uwe Lausen to the journal Vernissage, 15 March 1962 The exclusion was a recognition that Gruppe SPUR's "principles, methods and goals" were significantly in contrast with those of the SI.Letter from Guy Debord to Rodolphe Gasche (member of the Gruppe SPUR), 18 June 1962 This split however was not a declaration of hostilities, as in other cases of SI exclusions. A few months after the exclusion, in the context of judicial prosecution against the group by the German state, Debord expressed his esteem to Gruppe SPUR, calling it the only significant artist group in (Germany) since World War II, and regarding it at the level of the avant-gardes in other countries.Letter from Guy Debord To the Spur group, 28 April 1962 The next significant split was in 1962, wherein the "Nashists," the Scandinavian section of the SI led by Jørgen Nash, were excluded from the organization for lacking the theoretical rigor demanded by the Franco-Belgian section of SI led by Guy Debord. This excluded group would later declare themselves the 2nd Situationist International, basing their organization out of Sweden. Journalist Stewart Home, who favored the "Nashists" and considered Debord a "mystic, an idealist, a dogmatist and a liar"Anselm Jappe (1999) Guy Debord, p. 177 wrote that while the 2nd Situationist International sought to challenge the separation of art and politics from everyday life, Debord and the so-called 'specto- situationists'Stewart Home (1987) The Assault on Culture Chapter 8 – The Decline and Fall of the Specto-Situationist Critique. sought to concentrate solely on theoretical political aims.Karen Kurczynski (2005) Beyond Expressionism: Asger Jorn and the European Avant-Garde, 1941–1961 (New York University: New York 2005) Political period (1963–1968) By this point the Situationist International consisted almost exclusively of the Franco- Belgian section, led by Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. These members possessed much more of a tendency towards political theory over the more artistic aspects of the SI. The shift in the intellectual priorities within the SI resulted in more focus on the theoretical, such as the theory of the spectacle and Marxist critical analysis, spending much less time on the more artistic and tangible concepts like unitary urbanism, détournement, and situgraphy.Luther Blissett (2002) Guy Debord Is Really Dead During this period the SI began having more and more influence on local university students in France. Taking advantage of the apathy of their colleagues, five "Pro-situs", situationist-influenced students, infiltrated the University of Strasbourg's student union in November 1966 and began scandalising the authorities. Their first action was to form an "anarchist appreciation society" called The Society for the Rehabilitation for Karl Marx and Ravachol; next they appropriated union funds to flypost "Return of the Durruti Column", Andre Bertrand's détourned comic strip. They then invited the situationists to contribute a critique of the University of Strasbourg, and On the Poverty of Student Life, written by Tunisian situationist Mustapha/Omar Khayati was the result. The students promptly proceeded to print 10,000 copies of the pamphlet using university funds and distributed them during a ceremony marking the beginning of the academic year. This provoked an immediate outcry in the local, national and international media. May events (1968) The Situationists played a preponderant role in the May 1968 uprisings, and to some extent their political perspective and ideas fueled such crisis,Lasn, Kalle (2000) Culture Jam. New York: Quill. Quotation: > In May 1968, the Situationist-inspired Paris riots set off "a chain reaction > of refusal" against consumer capitalism. > L'I.S. diventa il detonatore, il reiferimento spesso taciuto per ragioni > settarie, la fabbrica di metafore entrate nel linguaggio comune che ne > ignora molto spesso l'esatto senso: e su tutte valga la metafora debordiana > della nostra societa' come "societa' dello spettacolo. providing a central theoretic foundation.Rivarol, 16 March 1984, quotation: > the Situationist International, the political and revolutionary movement > that was at the origin of the events of May 1968 Présent, 10 March 1984, quotation: > ...the enragé Guy Debord, the leader of the situationists, the most > nihilistic, the most destructive of the anarcho-surrealist movements, > probably the principal promoter of subversion of 1968. Babronski, Lamy, Brigouleix, France-Soir, 9 and 10 March 1984, quotation: > the situationists, a movement of libertarian tendency that was one of the > detonators of the May '68 events. . On May '68, it quotes Babronski et al. (1984)The monthly magazine 20 Ans, June 1968 issue, quotation: > The Situationist International is the vanguard of the student movement. Rivarol, 3 May 1968, quotation: > it has largely been forgotten that, as early as February, the riots at > Nantes showed the real face of these 'situationists,' fifteen hundred > students under red and black flags, the Hall of Justice occupied... While SI's member count had been steadily falling for the preceding several years, the ones that remained were able to fill revolutionary roles for which they had patiently anticipated and prepared. The active ideologists ("enragés" and Situationists) behind the revolutionary events in Strasbourg, Nanterre and Paris, numbered only about one or two dozen persons. This has now been widely acknowledged as a fact by studies of the period,Anselm Jappe, 1999, p. 81.Richard Gombin(1971).Marie Luise Syring (1998) (editor) Um 1968: konkrete Utopien in Kunst und Gesellschaft, quotation: > By far the greatest influence that the theory of art and aesthetics > exercised upon the protest movement of students and left-wing intellectuals > was in all likelihood that of the Situationists, something which practically > nobody recalls today. Demonet, Michel et al. (1975) Des Tracts en mai 68. Paris: Champ Libre, 1978.Pascal Dumontier (1990) Les Situationnistes et mai 68: Théorie et la practique de la révolution (1966–1972). Paris: Gérard Lebovici.Christine Fauré (1998) Mai 68: Jour et Nuit what is still wide open to interpretation is the "how and why" that happened. Charles de Gaulle, in the aftermath televised speech of 7 June, acknowledged that "This explosion was provoked by groups in revolt against modern consumer and technical society, whether it be the communism of the East or the capitalism of the West."De Gaulle, Televised speech of 7 June 1968. Quoted in René Viénet (1968) Enragés et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations (Paris: Gallimard) They also made up the majority in the Occupation Committee of the Sorbonne. An important event leading up to May 1968 was the scandal in Strasbourg in December 1966.René Viénet (1968) Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement (Translated by Loren Goldner and Paul Sieveking, New York: Autonomedia, 1992), sec.1 The Union Nationale des Étudiants de France declared itself in favor of the SI's theses, and managed to use public funds to publish Mustapha Khayati's pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life.Mustapha Khayati (November 1966) Thousands of copies of the pamphlet were printed and circulated and helped to make the Situationists well known throughout the nonstalinist left. Quotations from two key situationist books, Debord's The Society of the Spectacle (1967) and Khayati's On the Poverty of Student Life (1966), were written on the walls of Paris and several provincial cities. This was documented in the collection of photographs published in 1968 by Walter Lewino, L'imagination au pouvoir.The Beginning of an Era (part1, part 2) Situationist International No. 12, 1969 Those who followed the "artistic" view of the SI might view the evolution of the 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 dialectical approach: while savaging present day society, they sought a revolutionary society which would embody the positive tendencies of capitalist development. The "realization and suppression of art" is simply the most developed of the many dialectical supersessions which the SI sought over the years. For the Situationist International of 1968, the world triumph of workers councils would bring about all these supersessions. Though the SI were a very small group, they were expert self-propagandists, and their slogans appeared daubed on walls throughout Paris at the time of the revolt. SI member René Viénet's 1968 book Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement, France, May '68 gives an account of the involvement of the SI with the student group of Enragés and the occupation of the Sorbonne. The occupations of 1968 started at the University of Nanterre and spread to the Sorbonne. The police tried to take back the Sorbonne and a riot ensued. Following this a general strike was declared with up to 10 million workers participating. The SI originally participated in the Sorbonne occupations and defended barricades in the riots. The SI distributed calls for the occupation of factories and the formation of workers' councils, but, disillusioned with the students, left the university to set up The Council for the Maintenance of the Occupations (CMDO) which distributed the SI's demands on a much wider scale. After the end of the movement, the CMDO disbanded. Aftermath (1968–1972) By 1972, Gianfranco Sanguinetti and Guy Debord were the only two remaining members of the SI. Working with Debord, in August 1975, Sanguinetti wrote a pamphlet titled Rapporto veridico sulle ultime opportunità di salvare il capitalismo in Italia (The Real Report on the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy), which (inspired by Bruno Bauer) purported to be the cynical writing of "Censor", a powerful industrialist. The pamphlet argued that the ruling class of Italy supported the Piazza Fontana bombing and other covert, false flag mass slaughter for the higher goal of defending the capitalist status quo from communist influence. The pamphlet was mailed to 520 of Italy's most powerful individuals. It was received as genuine and powerful politicians, industrialists and journalists praised its content. After reprinting the tract as a small book, Sanguinetti revealed himself to be the true author. In the outcry that ensued and under pressure from Italian authorities Sanguinetti left Italy in February 1976, and was denied entry to France. After publishing in the last issue of the magazine an analysis of the May 1968 revolts, and the strategies that will need to be adopted in future revolutions, the SI was dissolved in 1972. Main concepts The spectacle and its society The Spectacle is a central notion in situationist theory, developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book, The Society of the Spectacle. In its limited sense, spectacle means the mass media, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation."Debord (1967) thesis 24 Debord said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the late 1920s.Brush (2005) pp. 377–8Debord (1988) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, II The critique of the spectacle is a development and application of Karl Marx's concept of fetishism of commodities, reification and alienation,Guy Debord (1967) Society of the Spectacle. (Paris, June 1967). Chapter I: Separation Perfected. and the way it was reprised by György Lukács in 1923. In the society of the spectacle, the commodities rule the workers and the consumers instead of being ruled by them. The consumers are passive subjects that contemplate the reified spectacle. As early as 1958, in the situationist manifesto, Debord described official culture as a "rigged game", where conservative powers forbid subversive ideas to have direct access to the public discourse. Such ideas get first trivialized and sterilized, and then they are safely incorporated back within mainstream society, where they can be exploited to add new flavors to old dominant ideas.Debord (1957) pp. 2, 10 This technique of the spectacle is sometimes called recuperation, and its counter-technique is the détournement.Robert Chasse, Bruce Elwell, Jonathon Horelick, Tony Verlaan. (1969) Faces of Recuperation. In the American section of the Situationist International, issue No. 1 (New York, June 1969). Détournement A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself,"Holt (2010) p. 252 like turning slogans and logos against the advertisers or the political status quo.Martin Kaste Exploring Occupy Wall Street's 'Adbuster' Origins, NPR, 20 October 2011 Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was reprised by the punk movement in the late 1970sMarrone, Gianfranco (2005) Sensi alterati: droghe, musica, immagini, p. 45, quote: and inspired the culture jamming movement in the late 1980s. Anti-capitalism The Situationist International, in the 15 years from its formation in 1957 and its dissolution in 1972, is characterized by a Marxist and surrealist perspective on aesthetics and politics,Francesco Poli (1991) p. 63. Quotation: > Nel 1972, quindici anni dopo la sua fondazione ... l'Internazionale > Situazionista si scioglie in quanto organizzazione. Durante questi anni, il > movimento, caratterizzato da un'ideologia dell'estetico e del politico di > matrice marxista e surrealista, produce una quantita' consistente di scritti > teorici, opuscoli, libri, film e lavori artistici nel campo della pittura e > della progettazione di interventi nella dimensione urbana. Di grande rilievo > è il ruolo degli artisti, tra cui in particolare Asger Jorn, Constant e > Pinot Gallizio; without separation between the two: art and politics are faced together and in revolutionary terms., quotation: > Per la prima volta dopo il surrealismo, arte e politica vengono affrontate > insieme in termini rivoluzionari. ... L'idea chiave è quella della > 'costruzione di situazioni' ... L'urbanesimo unitario ... Fondamentale è la > 'ricerca psicogeografica': studio delle leggi esatte e degli effetti precisi > che l'ambiente geografico, coscientemente disposto o no, attua direttamente > sul comportamento affettivo degli individui. The SI analyzed the modern world from the point of view of everyday life.Richard Gombin (1971), chap. 3, quotation: > the IS was to attempt an analysis of the modern world from the point of view > of everyday life. ... The critique of everyday life is not intended to be > purely an analysis; it is supposed to lead on to a revolutionary praxis. ... > On SI analysis of consumerism: This process causes an accelerating > degradation of everyday life. The core arguments of the Situationist International were an attack on the capitalist degradation of the life of people, quotation: > [...] reagire all'avvilita condizione dell'uomo nel sistema capitalista. and the fake models advertised by the mass media, to which the Situationist responded with alternative life experiences. > Question: "Le profezie di Guy Debord a proposito della Società dello > spettacolo si avverano sotto i nostri occhi: il governo si occupa della > «percezione» delle cose da parte dei cittadini più che della sostanza > materiale, dei bisogni, dei fatti. L'invenzione dell'«emergenza sicurezza» è > un caso lampante. Come pensi ci si debba muovere in questo scenario?" > Answer: "Come suggeriva Debord: con pratiche di vita alternative. The alternative life experiences explored by the Situationists were the construction of situations, unitary urbanism, psychogeography, and the union of play, freedom and critical thinking.Debord harshly denounced the degradation in the quality of life under capitalism, also in his 1957 Report. said on Debord's Report: > Con il suo Rapporto... del 1957, Debord definisce programmaticamente le basi > teoriche del situazionismo. ... > Nel Rapporto di Debord si legge inoltre una durissima critica allo > sfruttamento capitalistico delle masse anche nel tempo libero attraverso > l'industria del divertimento che abbrutisce la gente con sottoprodotti > dell'ideologia mistificata della borghesia. A major stance of the SI was to count on the force of a revolutionary proletariat. This stance was reaffirmed very clearly in a discussion on "To what extent is the SI a political movement?", during the Fourth SI Conference in London. The SI remarked that this is a core Situationist principle, and that those that don't understand it and agree with it, are not Situationist. Art and politics The SI rejected all art that separated itself from politics, the concept of 20th-century art that is separated from topical political events.(1963) The Counter-Situationist Campaign in Various Countries . Internationale Situationniste No. 8 (Paris, January 1963). Translated by Ken Knabb. The SI believed that the notion of artistic expression being separated from politics and current events is one proliferated by reactionary considerations to render artwork that expresses comprehensive critiques of society impotent. They recognized there was a precise mechanism followed by reactionaries to defuse the role of subversive artists and intellectuals, that is, to reframe them as separated from the most topical events, and divert from them the taste for the new that may dangerously appeal the masses; after such separation, such artworks are sterilized, banalized, degraded, and can be safely integrated into the official culture and the public discourse, where they can add new flavors to old dominant ideas and play the role of a gear wheel in the mechanism of the society of the spectacle. According to this theory, artists and intellectuals that accept such compromises are rewarded by the art dealers and praised by the dominant culture. The SI received many offers to sponsor "creations" that would just have a "situationist" label but a diluted political content, that would have brought things back to order and the SI back into the old fold of artistic praxis. The majority of SI continued to refuse such offers and any involvement on the conventional avant-garde artistic plane. This principle was affirmed since the founding of the SI in 1957, but the qualitative step of resolving all the contradictions of having situationists that make concessions to the cultural market, was made with the exclusion of Gruppe SPUR in 1962. The SI noted how reactionary forces forbid subversive ideas from artists and intellectuals to reach the public discourse, and how they attack the artworks that express comprehensive critique of society, by saying that art should not involve itself into politics. The construction of situations The first edition of Internationale Situationniste defines the constructed situation as "a moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of a unitary ambiance and a game of events." As the SI embraced dialectical Marxism, the situation came to refer less to a specific avant-garde practice than to the dialectical unification of art and life more generally. Beyond this theoretical definition, the situation as a practical manifestation thus slipped between a series of proposals. The SI thus were first led to distinguish the situation from the mere artistic practice of the happening, and later identified it in historical events such as the Paris Commune in which it exhibited itself as the revolutionary moment. The SI's interest in the Paris Commune was expressed in 1962 in their fourteen "Theses on the Paris Commune". Psychogeography The first edition of Internationale Situationniste defined psychogeography as "the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment (whether consciously organized or not) on the emotions and behavior of individuals." The term was first recognized in 1955 by Guy Debord while still with the Letterist International: =Dérive= By definition, psychogeography combines subjective and objective knowledge and studies. Debord struggled to stipulate the finer points of this theoretical paradox, ultimately producing "Theory of the Dérive" in 1958, a document which essentially serves as an instruction manual for the psychogeographic procedure, executed through the act of dérive ("drift"). SI engaged in a play- form that was also practiced by its predecessor organization, the Lettrist International, the art of wandering through urban space, which they termed dérive, whose unique mood is conveyed in Debord's darkly romantic meaning of palindrome. Two excursions organized by Andre Breton serve as the closest cultural precedents to the dérive. The first in 1921, was an excursion to the Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre with the Parisian Dadaists; the second excursion was on 1 May 1923, when a small group of Surrealists walked toward the countryside outside of Blois. Debord was cautious however to differentiate between the derive and such precedents. He emphasized its active character as "a mode of experimental behavior" that reached to Romanticism, the Baroque, and the age of chivalry, with its tradition of long adventures voyages. Such urban roaming was characteristic of Left Bank bohemianism in Paris.Andreotti, Libero. "Play-Tactics of the "Internationale Situationniste""https://www.jstor.orgPlay-tactics of the Internationale Situationniste*(n.d.): 36–58. Jstor. The MIT Press, 2000. Web. 2015. In the SI's 6th issue, Raoul Vaneigem writes in a manifesto of unitary urbanism, "All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops—the geometry".Gray, Christopher, editor, Leaving the 20th Century: the Incomplete Work of the Situationist International, London: Rebel P, 1998. p. 26. Dérive, as a previously conceptualized tactic in the French military, was "a calculated action determined by the absence of a greater locus", and "a maneuver within the enemy's field of vision".McDonough, Tom, ed. Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents, Boston: October Press, 2004. pg 259. To the SI, whose interest was inhabiting space, the dérive brought appeal in this sense of taking the "fight" to the streets and truly indulging in a determined operation. The dérive was a course of preparation, reconnaissance, a means of shaping situationist psychology among urban explorers for the eventuality of the situationist city. Work, leisure, and play The situationists observed that the worker of advanced capitalism still only functions with the goal of survival. In a world where technological efficiency has increased production exponentially, by tenfold, the workers of society still dedicate the whole of their lives to survival, by way of production. The purpose for which advanced capitalism is organized isn't luxury, happiness, or freedom, but production. The production of commodities is an end to itself; and production by way of survival. The theorists of the Situationist International regarded the current paradigm of work in advanced capitalist society as increasingly absurd. As technology progresses, and work becomes exponentially efficient, the work itself becomes exponentially more trivial. The spectacle's social function is the concrete manufacture of alienation. Economic expansion consists primarily of the expansion of this particular sector of industrial production. The "growth" generated by an economy developing for its own sake can be nothing other than a growth of the very alienation that was at its origin. Political theory Major works Twelve issues of the main French edition of journal Internationale Situationniste were published, each issue edited by a different individual or group, including: Guy Debord, Mohamed Dahoiu, Giuseppe Pinot- Gallizio, Maurice Wyckaert, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Asger Jorn, Helmut Sturm, Attila Kotanyi, Jørgen Nash, Uwe Lausen, Raoul Vaneigem, Michèle Bernstein, Jeppesen Victor Martin, Jan Stijbosch, Alexander Trocchi, Théo Frey, Mustapha Khayati, Donald Nicholson-Smith, René Riesel, and René Viénet. Classic Situationist texts include: On the Poverty of Student Life, Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. The first English-language collection of SI writings, although poorly and freely translated, was Leaving The 20th century edited by Christopher Gray. The Situationist International Anthology edited and translated by Ken Knabb, collected numerous SI documents which had previously never been seen in English. Relationship with Marxism Rooted firmly in the Marxist tradition, the Situationist International criticized Trotskyism, Marxism–Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism from a position they believed to be further left and more properly Marxist. The situationists possessed a strong anti-authoritarian current, commonly deriding the centralized bureaucracies of China and the Soviet Union in the same breath as capitalism. Debord's work The Society of the Spectacle (1967) established situationist analysis as Marxist critical theory. The Society of the Spectacle is widely recognized as the main and most influential Situationist essay.Giorgio Agamben (1990), "Glosse in margine ai Commentari sulla societa dello spettacolo" in : > On book Society of Spectacle: "l'analisi più lucida e severa delle miserie e > della servitù di una società—quella dello spettacolo, in cui noi viviamo—che > ha esteso oggi il suo dominio su tutto il pianeta The concept of revolution created by the Situationist International was anti- capitalist,Richard Gombin (1971), chap. 3, quotation: > The concept of revolution created by the Situationist International is that > of total contestation of modern capitalism. Guy Debord (1961) Perspectives for Conscious Changes in Everyday Life. This work was originally presented by tape recording 17 May 1961 at a conference of the Group for Research on Everyday Life convened in Paris by Henri Lefebvre. Its first print appearance was in Internationale Situationniste No. 6 (Paris, August 1961).Editorial Notes, Internationale Situationniste No. 8, 1963. Marxist, Young Hegelian,Clark and Nicholson-Smith (Winter 1997), quotation: > In particular the key issue, of how and why the situationists came to have a > preponderant role in May 1968—that is, how and why their brand of politics > participated in, and to an extent fueled, a crisis of the late-capitalist > State—is still wide open to interpretation. A description of the portion of the Left at clash with the situationists is found in note #4: > The word "Left" ... much of the time is used descriptively, and therefore > pessimistically, to indicate a set of interlocking ideological directorships > stretching roughly from the statist and workerist fringes of social > democracy and laborism to the para-academic journals and think tanks of > latter-day Trotskyism, taking in the Stalinist and lightly post-Stalinist > center along the way. and from the very beginning in the 50s, remarkably differently from the established Left, anti-Stalinist and against all repressive regimes. > Non a caso l'I.S. sorge ed e' coeva alla denuncia dello Stalinismo. Debord starts his 1967 work with a revisited version of the first sentence with which Marx began his critique of classical political economy, Das Kapital.Das Kapital, entry sentence, p. 125: "The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an 'immense collection of commodities'""The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles." Debord G.E. (1967), thesis 1st. In a later essay, Debord will argue that his work was the most important social critique since Marx's work. Drawing from Marx, which argued that under a capitalist society the wealth is degraded to an immense accumulation of commodities, Debord argues that in advanced capitalism, life is reduced to an immense accumulation of spectacles, a triumph of mere appearance where "all that once was directly lived has become mere representation".Debord G.E. (1967) : thesis 17, 42Giorgio Agamben, 1989 The spectacle, which according to Debord is the core feature of the advanced capitalist societies,Debord G.E. (1967) : thesis 6, 34 has its "most glaring superficial manifestation" in the advertising-mass media-marketing complex.Debord G.E. (1967) : thesis 24 Elaborating on Marx's argument that under capitalism our lives and our environment are continually depleted, Debord adds that the Spectacle is the system by which capitalism tries to hide such depletion. Debord added that, further than the impoverishment in the quality of life,Debord G.E. (1967) : thesis 6, 8, 10, 17, 19, 30, 37, 60, 68, 114, 134 our psychic functions are altered, we get a degradation of mind and also a degradation of knowledge.Debord G.E. (1967) : thesis 25, 192 In the spectacular society, knowledge is not used anymore to question, analyze, or resolve contradictions, but to assuage reality. Such argument on the Spectacle as a mask"The real unity the spectacle proclaims masks the class division on which the real unity of the capitalist mode of production is based." Debord G.E. (1967) : thesis 72. of a degrading reality has been elaborated by many Situationist artists, producing détournements of advertising where instead of a shiny life the crude reality was represented. Situationist theorists advocated methods of operation that included democratic workers' councils and workers' self-management,Guy Debord letter to Italian section of the SI in Milan and to Mario Perniola in Rome, 12 March 1969Guy Debord letter to Paolo Salvadori 9 December [19]69Guy Debord letter To all the sections of the SI, [17 March 1970]Guy Debord letter To Rene Vienet, Wednesday 30 July [19]69 interested in empowering the individual, in contrast to the perceived corrupt bureaucratic states of the Eastern bloc. Their anti-authoritarian interpretation of Marxist theory can be identified with the broader council communist and libertarian Marxist movements, themselves more broadly termed as left communism. The last issue (1972) of the Situationist International journal, featured an editorial analyzing the events of May 1968. The editorial, written by Guy Debord, was titled The Beginning of an Era, probably as a detournement reference of Nachalo (The Beginning), a Russian Marxist monthly magazine. According to Greil Marcus, some found similarities between the Situationists and the Yippies.Greil Marcus The long walk of the Situationist International in McDonough (2004), Guy Debord and the Situationist International Former situationists Clark and Nicholson-Smith (British section), argued that the portion of the moderate Left that is the "established Left", and its "Left opinion-makers", usually addressed contemptuously the SI as "hopelessly young-Hegelian". Relationship with anarchism The Situationist International was differentiated from both anarchists and Marxists. In spite of this, they have frequently been associated with anarchism. Debord did a critical assessment of the anarchists in his 1967 The Society of the Spectacle.Debord (1967) The Society of the Spectacle, chap. 4 The Proletariat as Subject and as Representation, theses 92-4 In the final, 12th issue of the journal, the situationists rejected spontaneism and the "mystics of nonorganization," labeling them as a form of "sub-anarchism":Riesel, René Preliminaries on Councils and Councilist Organization, International Situationniste No. 12 (September 1969) According to situationist Ken Knabb, Debord pointed out the flaws and merits of both Marxism and anarchism. He argued that "the split between Marxism and anarchism crippled both sides. The anarchists rightly criticized the authoritarian and narrowly economistic tendencies in Marxism, but they generally did so in an undialectical, moralistic, ahistorical manner... and leaving Marx and a few of the more radical Marxists with a virtual monopoly on coherent dialectical analysis—until the situationists finally brought the libertarian and dialectical aspects back together again." Relationship with the established left The SI poses a challenge to the model of political action of a portion of the left,Clark and Nicholson-Smith (Spring 1997), response to Peter Wollen (March–April 1989). Quotation: > So far as Wollen is concerned, the anger was provoked by his essay on the > history of the SI, and specifically his three-sentence treatment of the > organization in its last decade. We think he should look again at these > sentences (which conclude some thirty pages of discussion of the SI's place > in modern art), and ask himself whether they are not lofty, contemptuous, > and dismissive. That's how they read to us. They seem to epitomize—and, in > view of their publication history, to enshrine—a certain effort to turn the > SI safely into an art movement, and thereby to minimize its role in the > political and social movements of the sixties. Like Wollen, presumably, we > think that those up-heavals are of much more than historical interest, and > every day they are traduced and trivialized by the culture industry. Much is > at stake, therefore. We wanted to denounce a loose conspirancy of silence > and misrepresentation which has been the response of a portion of the Left > to the challenge that the SI poses to their model of political action. the "established Left" and "Left opinion-makers". The first challenging aspect is the fueling role that the SI had in the upheavals of the political and social movements of the 1960s, upheavals for which much is still at stake and which many foresee as recurring in the 21st century. The second challenging aspect, is the comparison between the Situationist Marxist theory of the Society of the Spectacle, which is still very topical 30 years later, and the current status of the theories supported by leftist establishments in the same period, like Althusserianism, Maoism, workerism, Freudo-Marxism and others. The response to this challenge has been an attempt to silence and misinterpret, to "turn the SI safely into an art movement, and thereby to minimize its role in the political and social movements of the sixties". The core aspect of the revolutionary perspectives, and the political theory, of the Situationist International, has been neglected by some commentators,Ken Knabb (2006) SI Anthology, Bibliography – Books about the SI – In English, p. 498 which either limited themselves to an apolitical reading of the situationist avant-garde art works, or dismissed the Situationist political theory. Examples of this are Simon Sadler's The Situationist City, and the accounts on the SI published by the New Left Review. The concept of revolution created by the Situationist International was anti-capitalist, Marxist, Young Hegelian, and from the very beginning in the 1950s, remarkably differently from the established Left, anti-Stalinist and against all repressive regimes. The SI called in May 1968 for the formation of Workers councils. There was no separation between the artistic and the political perspectives. For instance, Asger Jorn never believed in a conception of the Situationist ideas as exclusively artistic and separated from political involvement. He was at the root and at the core of the Situationist International project, fully sharing the revolutionary intentions with Debord.Mario Lippolis (2000) Notizie su Asger Jorn, situazionista iperpolitico in Mario Lippolis (2000) Un dialogo tra vandali civilizzatori nello sfacelo dell'impero della merce in Reception Criticism Critics of the Situationists frequently assert that their ideas are not in fact complex and difficult to understand, but are at best simple ideas expressed in deliberately difficult language, and at worst actually nonsensical. For example, anarchist Chaz Bufe asserts in Listen Anarchist! that "obscure situationist jargon" is a major problem in the anarchist movement. Andrea Gibbons argues that the Parisian situationists failed to take on board practically or theoretically the experience of their African members, such as is shown by Abdelhafid Khattib's experience of police harassment while conducting psychogeographic research on Les Halles in 1958. She remarks how little the suppression of Algerians in Paris had on their activity and thinking – Bernstein and Debord co-signed the Declaration on the Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War in 1961, which led to them being questioned by the police. She cites a letter written by Jacqueline de Jong, Jorgen Nash, and Ansgar Elde protesting the expulsion of the Spur group in 1962 which highlights the political repression in Paris at that time. Gibbons also criticises the lack of mention of the Algerian situationists in either Debord's or Vaneigem's memoirs. Influence evoL PsychogeogrAphix 2003 Debord's analysis of the spectacle has been influential among people working on television, particularly in France and Italy;Derrida (2002) Q&A; session at Film Forum pp. 116–7 quote: in Italy, TV programs produced by situationist intellectuals, like Antonio Ricci's Striscia la notizia, or Carlo Freccero's programming schedule for Italia 1 in the early 1990s.Luther Blissett (2002) [1995] Guy Debord Is Really Dead, Sabotage Editions, English edition of Guy Debord è morto davvero In the 1960s and 1970s, anarchists, communists, and other leftists offered various interpretations of Situationist concepts in combination with a variety of other perspectives. Examples of these groups include: in Amsterdam, the Provos; in the UK, King Mob, the producers of Heatwave magazine (including Charles Radcliffe who later briefly joined the English Section of the Situationist International), and the Angry Brigade. In the US, groups like Black Mask (later Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers), The Weathermen, and the Rebel Worker group also explicitly employed their ideas. Anarchist theorists such as Fredy Perlman, Bob Black, Hakim Bey, and John Zerzan, have developed the SI's ideas in various directions away from Marxism. These theorists were predominantly associated with the magazines Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, and Green Anarchy. During the early 1980s, English anarchist Larry Law produced the Spectacular Times pocket-books series, which aimed to make Situationist ideas more easily assimilated into the anarchist movement. Later anarchist theorists such as the CrimethInc. collective also claim Situationist influence. Situationist urban theory, defined initially by the members of the Lettrist International as "Unitary Urbanism," was extensively developed through the behavioural and performance structures of The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture during the 1990s. The re-emergence of the London Psychogeographical Association also inspired many new psychogeographical groups including Manchester Area Psychogeographic. The LPA and the Neoist Alliance along with the Luther Blissett Project came together to form a New Lettrist International with a specifically Communist perspective. Around this time, Unpopular Books and the LPA released some key texts including new translations of Asger Jorn's work. Around this time also, groups such as Reclaim the Streets and Adbusters have, respectively, seen themselves as "creating situations" or practicing detournement on advertisements. In cultural terms, the SI's influence has arguably been greater, if more diffuse. The list of cultural practices which claim a debt to the SI is extensive, but there are some prominent examples: * Situationist ideas exerted a strong influence on the design language of the punk rock phenomenon of the 1970s. To a significant extent this came about due to the adoption of the style and aesthetics and sometimes slogans employed by the SI. These were often second hand, via English pro-Situ groups such as King Mob whose associates included Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid. Factory Records owner Tony Wilson was influenced by Situationist urbanism and Factory Records band The Durutti Column took its name from Andre Bertrand's collage Le Retour de la Colonne Durutti. (Bertrand, in turn, took his title from the eponymous anarchist army during the Spanish Civil War). U.S. punk group The Feederz have been acclaimed as exhibiting a more direct and conscious influence. Formed in the late 1970s, they became known for extensive use of detournement and their intention to provoke their audience through the exposition of Situationist themes. Other musical artists whose lyrics and artwork have referenced Situationist concepts include: David Bowie, Ian Brown, Laetitia Sadier, The Love Kills Theory, Chumbawamba, Manic Street Preachers, Nation of Ulysses, Huggy Bear, Joan of Arc and Refused. Situationist theory experienced a vogue in the late '90s hardcore punk scene, being referenced by Orchid, His Hero Is Gone, and CrimethInc. * One can also trace situationist ideas within the development of other avant-garde threads such as Unilalianism and Neoism, as well as artists such as Mark Divo. * Some hacker related e-zines, which, like samizdat, were distributed via email and FTP over early Internet links and BBS quoted and developed ideas coming from SI. A few of them were N0 Way, N0 Route, UHF, in France; and early Phrack, cDc in the US. More recently, writers such as Thomas de Zengotita have echoed Situationist theories regarding the spectacle of contemporary society. See also * Anti-art * Bernadette Corporation * Golden Fleet * King Mob * The Right to Be Greedy: Theses on the Practical Necessity of Demanding Everything Notes References * Full text. Derrida, Jacques (2002) Q&A; session at Film Forum, New York City, 23 October 2002, transcript by Gil Kofman. Published in Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Kofman, Jacques Derrida (2005) Derrida: screenplay and essays on the film Further reading * Balsebre, Gianluigi. Della critica radicale. Bibliografia ragionata sull'Internazionale situazionista. Con documenti inediti in italiano Grafton edizioni, Bologna, 1995. * Cooper, Sam. The Situationist International in Britain: Modernism, Surrealism, and the Avant-Gardes. Routledge, New York, 2016. * Ford, Simon. The Situationist International: A User's Guide (Black Dog, London, 2004) * Sadler, Simon. The Situationist City. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1998. * Vachon, Marc. L'arpenteur de la ville: L'utopie situationniste et Patrick Straram. Les Éditions Triptyque, Montreal, 2003 . * Wark, McKenzie. 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008) * Wark, McKenzie. The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International (Verso, New York, 2011) * The Rise and Fall of The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective, 2015. * The Situationist international (1957–1972) In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni. JRP Ringier, Zurich, 2007 External links * Situationist International Online * The Situationist International Text Library * Situationist Cinema at 0xDB * Translations of all twelve issues of Internationale Situationniste 1957 establishments in France 1972 disestablishments in France Anti-capitalism Anti-consumerist groups Anti-Stalinist left Architecture groups Contemporary French history Continental philosophy organizations Critical theory Culture jamming Far- left politics in France Left-wing internationals Modern art Organizations established in 1957 Organizations disestablished in 1972 Social philosophy Socialism Underground culture "