situationist

In Conversation with Raoul Vaneigem - Hans Ulrich Obrist

The Tree of Guernica directed by Fernando Arrabal

Interview with Raoul Vaneigem on the future of anarchism post 2009.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I just visited Edouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau, who have written an appeal to Barack Obama. What would your appeal and/or advice be to Obama?

Revolutionary self-theory: A beginners' manual - Larry Law

PDF of a Situationist pocketbook by Larry Law on revolutionary self-theory.

Spectacular Times

Partial archive of a series of small 'pocketbooks' in the late 1970s/early 1980s entitled 'Spectacular Times' by Larry Law. They serve as a brief introduction to situationist ideas. Each consists of newspaper clippings, quotations, handwritten text by Law and illustrations, all compiled and arranged with great humour!

Taken from http://nntk.net/main.php?g2_itemId=251 to make reading and sharing easier. If you have any of the other issues of these pocketbooks please let us know over e-mail or by commenting below, as we would love to complete this archive.

The bad days will end

Optimistic text from the Situationist International that suggests whilst previous revolts have failed, future ones may not.

As the world of the spectacle extends its reign it approaches the climax of its offensive, provoking new resistances everywhere. These resistances are very little known precisely because the reigning spectacle is designed to present an omnipresent hypnotic image of unanimous submission. But they do exist and are spreading.

I accuse Harvard University

A situationist critique of Harvard’s 1969 Left politics.

“Whereas this project was undertaken by individuals at different points in their growth to consciousness, i.e to revolutionary coherence (unity, totality) as persons, and

Whereas there was more or less lack of engagement in the practical task of carrying out the project – due partly to unavoidable difficulties of spatio-temporal coordination, and

The joy of revolution - Ken Knabb

Ken Knabb's book The Joy of Revolution which examines the pros and cons of diverse radical tactics and speculates on how a stateless, classless, post-revolutionary society may function.

First published in Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb (1997) and retrieved on 24 January, 2012 from http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/joyrev.htm.

Remarks on Contradiction and its failure

Ken Knabb's notes on the US pro-situ group Contradiction of which he was a member, it's work, dissolution and 'failure'.

“Now... the story... does not disperse indefinitely like the banal actuality; rather it organizes itself. The principle of organization is the something that was secret in the actuality. Previously the actuality was indefinite and wandering because the organizing figure was unnoticed; now that it is allowed to claim attention, the rest falls into place...

Critique of the New Left Movement

Contradiction's examination of the US New Left, a broad movement which encompassed Bookchinism, the Weathermen, Yippies, Women Liberation and Communalism.

The Movement in General

On the poverty of hip life

A pro-situ critique of "hip" life written by Contradiction in April 1972.

The values which formerly braced the organization of appearances have lost their power; morality, family, patriotism and all the rest fall away like so much dead weight. No longer can the old roles and mystifications compensate for the sacrifice of authentic experience which they demand. Businessman, professor, honest worker, playboy, housewife — who can take them seriously anymore?

CEM additions to 'On the poverty of student life'

From the Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous’s rather freely adapted edition (May 1970, 3000 copies) of the 1966 situationist pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life. While making only a few minor changes in chapters 1 and 3, they replaced most of chapter 2 (re the Provos, East European dissidents, Zengakuren, etc.) with a more detailed critique of subsequent developments in the American scene and added the coda after chapter 3. There was also an introduction (not reproduced here), which summed up a few basic points about the Strasbourg scandal and the May 1968 revolt.

[ADDITIONS TO CHAPTER TWO]

. . . The “crisis of youth” — the refusal to become socialized to an alien world — is nearly universal. The variations are, as we have seen, only in the form: delinquent, mental patient, revolutionary. Even the recuperated youth — social worker, “Peace” Corps volunteer, peace marcher — seeks, in his guilt-ridden way, to rebuild the world.