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Situationist International: A User's Guide
An accessible guide to the art, architecture and activist movement of the Situationist International.
174 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 19, 2023
Many years ago in Paris in May 1968, the Situationists used their famous agit-prop posters and banners to very nearly overturn the whole world order. Simon Ford's book offers an easy and engaging fast introduction to a movement that is above all a blueprint for urban activism and therefore important for any city dwellers who happen to specialise in architecture.
A spin-off from Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism and other inspirations, Situationism's magic formula is to not exist, and therefore be impossible to destroy. The first issue of "IS - Internationale Situationiste" (June 1958), indeed declared that "Situationism is a word totally devoid of meaning. There is no Situationism". Ford describes how this non-movement started in the 1950s as a critique of language, and then developed through endless denunciations and expulsions, restarts, and changes of direction. These were orchestrated by Guy Debord (b.1932) political philosopher, artist, film maker, urbanist, and street fighter, the central figure of Situationism. Despite what one reviewer called its “dense hegelian wrappings” Debord’s brilliant "Society of the Spectacle" (1967) is still essential reading for architects and urbanists for its radical critique of city planning, and the far more interesting alternatives he proposes.
"Sprawling isolation is an effective method of keeping a population under control". Using this quote from Lewis Mumford's "The City in History" Debord exposes how cities control us by substituting our authentic experiences with manufactured emotions and desires. This culminates in forcing us to admire, through the media, celebs whose role is to show us the wonderful life we can’t have: the society of the spectacle. Debord denounces the root cause of this: the pseudo-science of urban planning "the visible freezing of life", a willing servant of "capitalist production” that helps to congeal urban form into an homogenous “unified space" that facilitates control. The same issue of “Internationale Situationiste” also published Ivan Chtcheglov’s "Formulary for a New Urbanism" which declared "We are bored in the city. There’s no Temple of the Sun any more. The only promises we know are the ones we see in advertisements. It’s really difficult now, to get in touch with that mysterious spectrum of diverse feelings one encounters unexpectedly, in everyday life." Whilst Situationism’s starting point may need redefinition today, it remains undeniable that conventional urban planning still facilitates a “process of banalisation" in which “the space of commodification can be continuously modified and reconstructed."
Ford’s lively book recapitulates the literary and artistic vicissitudes of this movement for reappropriating the city, via a series of chaotic dinners, conferences, drinking bouts, exhibitions, publications, sexual couplings and uncouplings through the 1950s and 1960s. Situationism's often painful travails of constant renewal and self-destruction led to broken friendships, the pitiless demolition of its own institutions, and ultimately in 1990, Debord’s suicide to escape his unwanted celebrity.
Ford’s description of the Paris, May 1968 “évènements” is perhaps too celebratory (given that they failed) and he emphasises their Frenchness at the expense of Situationism’s internationalist approach. Despite this, the wide scope of his book shows how Situationism is still very much alive today as the ideological underpinning for such contemporary provocations as buynothing.org, punk and hip-hop, skateboarding, Reclaim the Streets, London fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood, artists like Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer, and activist groups like Adbusters. To these one could add some “Situationist” work at the Architectural Association, such as the illegal construction of small buildings (which are photographed and then demolished), or designing ironic temples for the worship of consumerism.
The “Situationist” urban designer relies on first-person discovery of how fantastic real cities are. To apply it, the radical urbanist simply goes off on a wander through the city’s interstices, getting lost in its entrails, wastelands, and back spaces, subverting the official logic of its organisation. This is the "Dérive": a meandering journey across a city, changing direction at random. Following Baudelaire's flâneur, and Walter Benjamin's wanderings in Paris, groups of Situationist “psychogeographers” in the 1960s would go on a dérive by “drifting from bar to bar” or simply getting into a taxi, and telling the driver to go anywhere. These experiences would then be depicted as maps, paintings, drawings, and documents such as Debord's "Naked City" (1958) in which he cut the Paris map into pieces, drawing red arrows in the white areas in between, to bring out the hidden dynamics that official urban planners can’t control. So this useful and stimulating introduction to Situationism can also be a fun manual, showing urbanists how to change modes and work on cities in a different way.
A spin-off from Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism and other inspirations, Situationism's magic formula is to not exist, and therefore be impossible to destroy. The first issue of "IS - Internationale Situationiste" (June 1958), indeed declared that "Situationism is a word totally devoid of meaning. There is no Situationism". Ford describes how this non-movement started in the 1950s as a critique of language, and then developed through endless denunciations and expulsions, restarts, and changes of direction. These were orchestrated by Guy Debord (b.1932) political philosopher, artist, film maker, urbanist, and street fighter, the central figure of Situationism. Despite what one reviewer called its “dense hegelian wrappings” Debord’s brilliant "Society of the Spectacle" (1967) is still essential reading for architects and urbanists for its radical critique of city planning, and the far more interesting alternatives he proposes.
"Sprawling isolation is an effective method of keeping a population under control". Using this quote from Lewis Mumford's "The City in History" Debord exposes how cities control us by substituting our authentic experiences with manufactured emotions and desires. This culminates in forcing us to admire, through the media, celebs whose role is to show us the wonderful life we can’t have: the society of the spectacle. Debord denounces the root cause of this: the pseudo-science of urban planning "the visible freezing of life", a willing servant of "capitalist production” that helps to congeal urban form into an homogenous “unified space" that facilitates control. The same issue of “Internationale Situationiste” also published Ivan Chtcheglov’s "Formulary for a New Urbanism" which declared "We are bored in the city. There’s no Temple of the Sun any more. The only promises we know are the ones we see in advertisements. It’s really difficult now, to get in touch with that mysterious spectrum of diverse feelings one encounters unexpectedly, in everyday life." Whilst Situationism’s starting point may need redefinition today, it remains undeniable that conventional urban planning still facilitates a “process of banalisation" in which “the space of commodification can be continuously modified and reconstructed."
Ford’s lively book recapitulates the literary and artistic vicissitudes of this movement for reappropriating the city, via a series of chaotic dinners, conferences, drinking bouts, exhibitions, publications, sexual couplings and uncouplings through the 1950s and 1960s. Situationism's often painful travails of constant renewal and self-destruction led to broken friendships, the pitiless demolition of its own institutions, and ultimately in 1990, Debord’s suicide to escape his unwanted celebrity.
Ford’s description of the Paris, May 1968 “évènements” is perhaps too celebratory (given that they failed) and he emphasises their Frenchness at the expense of Situationism’s internationalist approach. Despite this, the wide scope of his book shows how Situationism is still very much alive today as the ideological underpinning for such contemporary provocations as buynothing.org, punk and hip-hop, skateboarding, Reclaim the Streets, London fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood, artists like Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer, and activist groups like Adbusters. To these one could add some “Situationist” work at the Architectural Association, such as the illegal construction of small buildings (which are photographed and then demolished), or designing ironic temples for the worship of consumerism.
The “Situationist” urban designer relies on first-person discovery of how fantastic real cities are. To apply it, the radical urbanist simply goes off on a wander through the city’s interstices, getting lost in its entrails, wastelands, and back spaces, subverting the official logic of its organisation. This is the "Dérive": a meandering journey across a city, changing direction at random. Following Baudelaire's flâneur, and Walter Benjamin's wanderings in Paris, groups of Situationist “psychogeographers” in the 1960s would go on a dérive by “drifting from bar to bar” or simply getting into a taxi, and telling the driver to go anywhere. These experiences would then be depicted as maps, paintings, drawings, and documents such as Debord's "Naked City" (1958) in which he cut the Paris map into pieces, drawing red arrows in the white areas in between, to bring out the hidden dynamics that official urban planners can’t control. So this useful and stimulating introduction to Situationism can also be a fun manual, showing urbanists how to change modes and work on cities in a different way.
March 3, 2018
More of a timeline of the formation, infighting, splitting, and evolution of the Situationist International as an organization or movement than a look at its underpinning ideology and prescriptions. I wanted to know more about psychogeography, dérives, and the spectacle. Guess I’ll have to read Debord myself.
May 15, 2022
Readable and well-illustrated guide to a group which, although enormously influential, was secretive and often obscure in its writings. Malcolm Maclaren and Jamie Reid are quoted here as saying that, for their work with the Sex Pistols, they just looked at the pictures in the flagship publication, Internationale Situationniste. Nevertheless, images were a large part of their influence, notably the posters printed during the 1968 protests. I hadn't realised that other aspects of situationism were psychogeography, and the kind of absurdist comic strip of which Biff is best known in the UK.
The author has a pithy and insightful way of describing the development and legacy of the Situationist International:
"Debord had learnt much from Isou [leader of the Lettriste International], especially about the intransigence and megalomania necessary to lead an avant-garde movement."
"It is possible to trace a similar development in the SI [Situationist International], from an art object-based movement to a theory-based movement."
"To this end the SI developed [...] what would now be recognised as a very successful media strategy - stay relatively obscure, spread rumours, drop key references, vastly exaggerate your strength, be extreme, and create scandal."
The author has a pithy and insightful way of describing the development and legacy of the Situationist International:
"Debord had learnt much from Isou [leader of the Lettriste International], especially about the intransigence and megalomania necessary to lead an avant-garde movement."
"It is possible to trace a similar development in the SI [Situationist International], from an art object-based movement to a theory-based movement."
"To this end the SI developed [...] what would now be recognised as a very successful media strategy - stay relatively obscure, spread rumours, drop key references, vastly exaggerate your strength, be extreme, and create scandal."
August 14, 2017
[6.0]
June 6, 2008
An excellent introduction to The Situationist International i.e. Guy Debord & Co. From the early 50's to the 70's they were one of the first to see modern civilization in the West, and how it fits in a world of Urban architecture as well as consumerism among other things. How Power stays in the hand of those who have power and how that affects people on many many levels. Also there is a lot of poetry in this group - and not literal poetry, but poetry by action as well as thought. Simon Ford did a great job in putting this book together.
June 1, 2011
Excellent introduction to the Situationist International. It puts the Situationist International into a historical context. While it outlined the Situationist International's formation it introduced key concepts without elaborating on them too far.
April 6, 2016
Very good history of the SI, with a lot of information of peripheral members. Contains valuable recommendations of further reading, as well as online archives. Good introduction to situationist theory.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews