Showing posts with label Situationism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Situationism. Show all posts

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Cosmonauts of the Future

COSMONAUTS OF THE FUTURE
A first ever English-language anthology of the Scandinavian Situationists
Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere
Edited by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen & Jakob Jakobsen

This is the first ever English-language anthology collecting texts and documents from the still little-known Scandinavian part of the Situationist movement. The book covers over three decades of writing, from Asger Jorn's Luck and Chance published in 1953, to the statements of the Situationist Antinational set up by Jens Jørgen Thorsen and J.V. Martin in 1974. The writings collected gravitate around the year 1962 when the Situationist movement went through it's most dynamic and critical moments, and the disagreements about the relationship between art and politics came to a culmination, resulting in exclusions and the split of the Situationist International.

The Situationists did not win, and the almost forgotten Scandinavian fract ions even less so. The book broadens the understanding of the Situationist movement by bringing into view the wild and unruly activities of the Scandinavian fractions of the organisation and the more artistic, experimental, and actionist attitude that characterised them. They did, nevertheless, constitute a decisive break with the ruling socio-economic order through their project of bringing into being new forms of life. Only an analysis of the multifaceted and often contradictory Situationist revolution will allow us to break away from the dull contemplation of yet another document of Debord's archive or yet another drawing by Jorn. There is a lot to be learned from the history of revolutionary failure. It is along these lines that this book points forward beyond the crisis-ridden capitalist order that survives today.

Texts by: Asger Jorn, Jørgen Nash, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, Bauhaus Situationniste, Jacqueline de Jong, Gordon Fazakerley, Gruppe SPUR, Dieter Ku nzelman, J.V. Martin, and Guy Debord.
Translated by: Peter Shield, James Manley, Anja Buchele, Matthew Hyland, Fabian Tompsett, and Jakob Jakobsen.

Bio: Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen is an art historian and political theorist. He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and has published books and articles on the revolutionary tradition and modern art. Jakob Jakobsen is an artist and political organizer. He ran the Copenhagen Free University, cofounded the artist run TV station tvtv and has participated in exhibitions all over the world.

PDF available freely online: http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=666



***END***
‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Friday, June 6, 2014

The Game of War

THE GAME OF WAR

Class Wargames Presents "The Game of War" @ Essex
2:00 PM, June 10th @ the Waiting Room, St Botolphs (http://st-botolphs.org)
The Street with No Name (off Queen Street) Colchester, Essex CO1 2PQ

Class Wargames (http://www.classwargames.net) will come to Essex on June 10th to present "The Game of War,” staging a participatory playing of Guy Debord's board military-strategy board game.

Class Wargames is playing Guy Debord’s The Game of War using a replica of his original 1977 design for the board game. Guy Debord is celebrated as the chief strategist of the Situationist International and author of the searing critique of the media-saturated society of consumer capitalism: The Society of the Spectacle. What is less well known is that after the French May ’68 Revolution, Debord devoted much of the rest of his life to inventing, refining and promoting what he came to regard as his most important project: The Game of War.

The Game of War is a Clausewitz simulator: a Napoleonic era military strategy game where armies must maintain their communications structure to survive - and where victory is achieved by smashing your opponent’s supply network rather than by taking their pieces. For Debord, The Game of War wasn’t just a game - it was a guide to how people should live their lives within Fordist society. By playing this Clausewitz simulator, revolutionary activists could learn how to fight and win against the oppressors of spectacular society.

Politics is a continuation of war by other means. Wargames are a continuation of politics by other means.

Requisite Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/681989125188070

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Monday, March 17, 2014

Precarious Communism

Communisation
PRECARIOUS COMMUNISM

Precarious Communism
Book Release London March 25th
Tuesday March 25th @ 5PM
New Academic Building LG01
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
http://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=7429
https://www.facebook.com/events/219778581551552

How does one demonstrate the enduring relevance of a sacred text but to help it speak to present times? This is what churches do with the Bible and what Marxists do with the writings of Marx. Come on join us to celebrate the release of Precarious Communism, in which Richard Gilman-Opalsky detourns Marx and Engels to create a mutant manifesto for an autonomist and millennial Marxism.

Richard Gilman-Opalsky is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He is the author of Spectacular Capitalism: Guy
Debord and the Practice of Radical Philosophy (2011) and Unbounded Publics: Transgressive Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory (2008).

Hosted by the Centre for Cultural Studies: http://www.gold.ac.uk/cultural-studies/

Richard will also be presenting seminars (with Stevphen Shukaitis) at:
- the Department of Politics, History and International Relations at
Loughboro University on March 26th: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/phir/research/arg/
- the Centre for Work, Organization, and Society at the University of Essex on March 28th (this will be a day long workshop)

For more information on any of these events e-mail Stevphen Shukaitis: sshuka@essex.ac.uk

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
Glenn Rikowski at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski
Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

The Society of the Spectacle

THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE

THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE by Guy Debord
Newly translated and annotated by Ken Knabb
150 pages. $15.00

Guy Debord was the most influential figure in the Situationist International, the notorious group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. His book "The Society of the Spectacle," originally published in Paris in 1967, has been translated into more than twenty other languages and is arguably the most important radical book of the twentieth century. This is the first edition in any language to include extensive annotations, clarifying the historical allusions and revealing the sources of Debord's
"détournements."

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Debord's book is neither an ivory tower "philosophical" discourse nor a mere expression of "protest." It is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves. This makes it more of a challenge, but it is also why it remains so pertinent nearly half a century after its original publication while countless other social theories and intellectual fads have come and gone.

It has, in fact, become even more pertinent than ever, because the spectacle has become more all-pervading than ever -- to the point that it is almost universally taken for granted. Most people today have scarcely any awareness of pre-spectacle history, let alone of anti-spectacle possibilities. As Debord noted in his follow-up work, "Comments on the Society of the Spectacle" (1988), "spectacular domination has succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws."

The book is now at the printer's. It will be available March 20. For further information, see http://www.bopsecrets.org/cat.htm

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Beach Beneath the Street






THE BEACH BENEATH THE STREET: THE EVERYDAY LIFE AND GLORIOUS TIMES OF THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL

BY MCKENZIE WARK

PUBLISHED: 22 AUGUST 2011

"The lack of politicisation in the recent riots around Britain can be frustrating to those steeped in French theory, those who see the riot as what Martin Luther King described as the “language of the unheard”. But London 2011 is quite evidently not Paris 1968. A new book about the ideas that led to that moment in Paris sheds light on quite how different the two countries’ traditions are…

Wark has done us a great favour by explaining how situationist ideas (which included a proto-internet, an information super-network free of government control) still represent the sharpest and most surprisingly prescient critiques of the contemporary city." Edwin Heathcote, FINANCIAL TIMES
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EVENTS:

August 23, 2011, 8.00pm
Cafe OTO
18—22 Ashwin street, Dalston
London E8 3DL UK

McKenzie Wark appears at cafe OTO to talk about his book on the life and times of the Situationist International, The Beach Beneath the Street.
For more information: http://www.versobooks.com/events/191-the-beach-beneath-the-street-at-cafe-oto


August 24, 2011, 7.00pm
Housmans
5 Caledonian Road , King's Cross
London N1 9DX

McKenzie Wark’s new book on the subject The Beach Beneath the Street: The Glorious Times of the Situationist International, explores anew the history of the movement and connects the Situationist’s work to new practices in communication, built form, and everyday life.
For more information: http://www.versobooks.com/events/196-the-glorious-times-of-the-situationist-international


August 25, 2011, 7.00pm
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street
London E1 7QX UK

Writer McKenzie Wark explores the diversity of the Situationist International in his new book The Beach Beneath the Street, re-reading their history in the light of our contemporary experience of communications, architecture, and everyday life.
For more information: http://www.versobooks.com/events/188-the-beach-beneath-the-street-new-new-babylon
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McKenzie Wark’s history of the Situationist International writes against twenty-first century boredom with art and politics, in which both have ‘ceased to be modern, and finding it too passé to be postmodern… is now merely contemporary.’ Creating a new kind of historiography from the group’s legendary oeuvre, Wark re-presents the SI’s history in light of contemporary experiences to shake us out of our boredom and re-kindle the explosive potential of everyday life.

Over 50 years after the Situationist International appeared, its legacy of Marxism mixed with 20th century European artistic avant-garde continues to influence activists, artists and theorists. From the Invisible Committee’s bestselling The Coming Insurrection to Iain Sinclair’s psychogeographic explorations, the work of the Situationists echoes through twenty-first century thought. Yet, despite the rich possibilities, its breadth, diversity, and potential impact are still largely unexplored. Wark’s volume is a radical re-imagining of the Situationist legacy, which reconnects their work to new practices in communication, architecture, and everyday life.

Arguing that ‘Situations are temporary, singular unities of space and time… They call for a different kind of remembering,’ Wark takes readers on a tour of the movement from bohemian after-hours drinks in the cellars of 1950s St. Germain-des-Prés to the mythical beach ‘sous les pavès’ of the explosive days of May ’68.

Blending history and narrative, biography and literature, Wark traces the group’s development as an ensemble creation, rather than the brainchild of its most famous member, Guy Debord. Roaming through Europe and the lives of those who made up the movement – including Constant, Asger Jorn, Michèle Bernstein, Alex Trocchi and Jacqueline De Jong – Wark uncovers an international movement riven with conflicting passions, expanding the gaze beyond the Paris coterie.

Taking up Guy Debord’s famous injunction, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” Wark delves into the SI’s diverse body of work to re-present the legendary Situationists in a way that ignites the possibility of resistance for our time. Wark puts the Situationist experiments into context for twenty-first century struggles, and in doing so, suggests that while the Situationists failed to escape the world of twentieth-century spectacle, there might still be hope for us to escape the twenty-first century, while we still can.

The book jacket is also a fold out poster, Totality for Beginners. A collaborative graphic essay, the beautifully rendered poster employs text selected by McKenzie Wark with composition and drawings by Kevin C. Pyle
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PRAISE FOR THE HACKER MANIFESTO

“This is a perceptive, provocative study, packed to the seams with acute analysis.” Terry Eagleton, NATION

“Wark’s book challenges the new regime of property relations with all the epigrammatic vitality, conceptual innovation, and revolutionary enthusiasm of the great manifestos.” Michael Hardt, co-author of EMPIRE

“Infuriating and inspiring in turn, A Hacker Manifesto will spawn a thousand theses, and just maybe spawn change.” Mike Holderness, NEW SCIENTIST

“A Hacker Manifesto will yield some provocative ideas and real challenges to a world in which everything is commodified.” Eric J. Iannelli, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
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MCKENZIE WARK is the author of A HACKER MANIFESTO, GAMER THEORY, 50 YEARS OF RECUPERATION OF THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL and various other books. He teaches at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City.
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 720 7 / $26.95 / £14.99 / $33.50CAN / Hardback / 224 pages
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For a look into MCKENZIE WARK work visit:
http://vectorsjournal.org/issues/7/totality/

For more information about THE BEACH BENEATH THE STREET or to buy the book visit:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/980-the-beach-beneath-the-street
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Visit Verso’s website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers:http://www.versobooks.com

Become a fan of Verso on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Verso-Books/205847279448577

And get updates on Twitter - @VersoBooks
http://twitter.com/VersoBooks

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.
It starts tomorrow,
When I go to work’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom
Disguised as maximum fun’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com