Situationism: Executive Summary

Is it cool?

Situationism is strongly associated with Paris and 1968, and is therefore

• chic, and revolutionary or
  
• tired, delusional and overdone - vegans and anarchists?

Its enthusiasts like to think it is a secret philosophy and seem to enjoy being undercover.

Origins
The art movements of Dada and Surealism in the 1920s.

Key activities:
Derive: this is wandering round the city
Detournement: changing the meaning of existing objects.

Main Idea
Reality is not what it seams. Everything you see and experience is a construct to make you consume goods. This reality is called "The Spectacle".

The Key activities are exercises to experience the real world for oneself: one wanders round the city following your interests. This might be following a man in a nice suite to see where he goes or lingering to overhear a conversation outside an opticians. Some serious situationists perform 'algorithm walks' where there is a mathematical pattern to their movements.

Attempts to give some indication that there is a "Spectacle" can be difficult to make. Detournement (French for turning things arround) is a strategy where signs' meanings are changed to show that they are part of "The Spectacle." Defacing bill board to advertising cheap clothing to highlight low wages in the developing world is a typical example, but the strategy is now in Fine Art and can vary from being quite subtle to highly obscure.

Influence on UK Culture

Music: Punk rock, Manchester record Label Factory.
Geography, Town Planning, Branding of Cities: Manchester uses situationism to build its brand as revolutionary, creative and chic city.

Key Figures

Guy Debord: founder of the Situationists International
Ivan Chtcheglov: responsible for the quote "The Hacienda must be built." -
Tony Wilson?: got into situationism at Cambridge, Was it an epiphany that guided his life? Opinions are split: the chic associated with revolution and freedom is a good product to sell to the kids repackaged as headonism; The Hacienda and its legacy have been adopted by Manchester City Council as exemplars of great creativity in the city and catalysts for urban regeneration.

Legacy:
Boudrillard picked up idea of the Spectacle and took it to into the simulacra.
Lost of bits of Postmodernism.
Manchester University's Art History Department called Surealism and its Legacies. It incorporates situationsim and bangs on off over to the states where wandering though LA and New York is some kind of big deal. Frederick Jameson blah blah: Professor Amelia Jones l

Future developments
Situationism in Cyberspace. The Hacienda has been build .. in Second Life (funded by Manchester city council)

Use as a creative tool.
If we use the concept of knowledge is a map we can wander and find areas of knowledge. Chance meetings, going to places we are not supposed or encouraged to go, or to places we wouldn't think we would go to: these are the key benefits.
Walking round streets - a change from the flipboard and the training room? A change from the outdoor centre.
An anti capitalist tool can be used by the capitalist as a blueprint for success. Make your business define reality for you consumers, be the situationists worst enemy.

Further information

Guy Debord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Spectacle
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/situ.html

The film version of Society is the Spectacle is worth a look, if only to see the similarities between it and Adam Curtis' Trap. See them side by side on my test blog: http://testingtesting1212testing12.blogspot.com/

Ivan Chtcheglov
Formulary for a New Urbanism - http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Chtcheglov.htm

The Hacienda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ha%C3%A7ienda

Proper Academic Book:
The Most Radical Gesture, Sadie Plant

Plant makes the connection between Debord's work and Baudrillard: "Boudrillard's first book, Les Systemes des Object, was close to many ideas of the society of the spectacle" p.35