The Situationist International: A User’s Guide

by Simon Ford
Black Dog Publishing Limited, London, 2005
208 pp., illus. b/w and col. Paper, £16.95
ISBN: 1-904772-05-6.

Reviewed by Claudia Westermann
Winsstr. 30, II
10405 Berlin - Germany

c@ezaic.de

"All minds (esprits) which to an extent are informed of our time agree on that which is evident——that it has become impossible for art to assert itself as a superior activity, or even as an activity of compensation to which one could honorably devote one self. The reason for this degeneration is visible as the emergence of productive forces that necessitate other production relations and a new practice of life." ¹⁾

Had these sentences been written recently, perhaps, our glance into the future would contain more optimism. Yet, as some may know, they were written nearly 50 years prior.

Since 1989, when there were the first major retrospective exhibitions on a group that had referred to itself as an avant-garde movement——the Situationist International (SI)——the theoretical and artistic works of the SI have been acknowledged by a wider public. Consequently, publications by the SI appeared in reprint and numerous books of scholarly research were published.

In 1995 the British author Simon Ford published a book entitled The Realization & Suppression of the Situationist International, An Annotated Bibliography, 1972-1992 ²⁾ listing 363 mostly English titles. Ten years later we have the second publication by Simon Ford that deals with the Situationist International and in which the author builds up on the extensive research he performed for his previous publication.

The book is named The Situationist International, A User’s Guide. For those familiar with the works of the SI, it will certainly be a surprise to be addressed as users instead of readers. Those as well may have recognized the opening citation of this review as belonging to a text written by Guy-Ernest Debord, the key figure of the SI, together with Gil J. Wolman. The text was first published in French shortly before the foundation of the SI in May 1956 in the journal Les Lèvres Nues, a journal considered close to the surrealist movement, and translated to English as User Guide to Détournement. Those familiar with SI texts in the French original would also be aware that the second major theoretical book publication by the SI next to the Society of the Spectacle by Guy-Ernest Debord, The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem was meant "for the use by the younger generations". In the case of Debord, Wolman and Vaneigem, it is obvious who was addressed as user. Addressed were those, possibly younger, who could contribute to the transformation of a society that was perceived as being alienated from life, towards a society of constant revolutionary practice, those who could contribute to developing a new practice of life. Now, in 2005, one may wonder what kind of user is addressed in the User’s Guide presented to us.

In a sense, the book is a classic. It could be categorized as a history book. As such however it has a very specific focus on a limited number of persons involved with the movement of the Situationist International, a movement which was located in a specific time and has been described as the last avant-garde art movement. In four chapters the book presents an overview of the SI and the main actors associated with it, their ideas and actions within the historical context. All chapters are extensively illustrated. Numerous black and white photographs show SI members at their gatherings, and many images present examples of the work by the SI, paintings, comics and other illustrations. Additionally, various citations are inserted within the text and provide an idea about the style in which the SI theses were passed onto the public. An extensive number of side notes point to primary and secondary literature, mostly English publications, and invite for further reading.

The first chapter is dedicated to "The Pre-Situationist Years, 1931-1956", in which many of the later key ideas of situationist theory were already developed, eg. Psychogeography, Dérive and Détournement. Chapter two collects the events in "The Early Years of the Situationist International, 1957-1965". It includes brief accounts of several principal artists associated with the SI as well as the description of the scission from the German and the Scandinavian Section, the Spurists and the Nashists. Chapter three describes "The Beginning of an Era, 1966-1968" with the two major theoretical publications by Guy-Ernest Debord and Raoul Vaneigem as well as the SI’s involvement in the 1968 student revolt. The last chapter is dedicated to "The Dissolution of the SI and its Aftermath, 1969 and beyond". It includes several pages written about Debord’s films of the 70s as well as notes on various groups that understood themselves as situationist or were rather unwillingly associated with the SI by the media.

Simon Ford’s book ends with: "To study and learn from the lessons of the SI is no idle pastime or exercise in passive contemplation. It is nothing if not a determined step towards the realisation of a future society where the SI’s ideas about a useful life are no longer quite so exceptional."

At this point latest one certainly realises that the users addressed by his book are of similar inclinations as those addressed by Wolman, Debord, Vaneigem and others associated with the SI. They are potential revolutionaries, exception being, that this time they are expected to wrap themselves rather modestly in history, and not in slogan. One can assume that such a practice has the potential of becoming a very clandestine revolution, and as such, a possibly successful one towards a new practice of life. "Historical consciousness is an essential condition of social revolution", once wrote René Viénet, at times a member of the SI, cited by Simon Ford.


References:

1) Debord, G.-E. and Wolman, G.J., Mode d'emploi du détournement, first published in LES LÈVRES NUES N.8 (MAI 1956), available online at
http://sami.is.free.fr/Oeuvres/debord_wolman_mode_emploi_detournement.html, excerpt translated to English by the author of this review.

2) Ford, S., The Realization & Suppression of the Situationist International, An Annotated Bibliography, 1972-1992, Edinburgh, AK Press, 1995.