The Situationist International: A User's Guide (review)

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 ago.

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

In 1995 the British author Simon Ford published a book entitled The Realization & Suppression of the Situation-ist International, An Annotated Bibliography, 1972-1992 [2], listing 363 mostly English titles. Ten years later we have a second publication by Ford, in which the author builds upon 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 certainly will not be a surprise to be addressed as users instead of readers. They may recognize as well 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 Les Lèvres Nues, a journal considered close to the surrealist movement, and translated into English as User Guide to Détournement. Those familiar with SI texts in the original French will also be aware that The Revolution of Everyday Life, by Raoul Vaneigem, the second major theoretical book by the SI after Debord's Society of the Spectacle, was meant "for use by the younger generations." In the case of Debord, Wolman and Vaneigem, it is obvious who was addressed: those, possibly younger, who could contribute to the transformation of a society that was perceived as alienated from life into a society of constant revolutionary practice, those who could contribute to developing a new practice of life. Now, in 2006, 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 Situationist International, a movement located in a specific time that has been described as the last avant-garde art movement. In four chapters the book presents an overview of the SI, the main actors associated with it and their ideas and actions within their historical context. All chapters are extensively illustrated. Numerous black-and-white photographs show SI members at their gatherings, and many images present examples of work by the SI, paintings, comics and other illustrations. Additionally, various citations are inserted within the text and provide an idea of the style in which the SI theses were passed on to the public. An extensive number of side notes point to primary and secondary literature, mostly English publications, and invite 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 developed, for example, psychogeography, dérive and détournement. Chapter 2 collects the events in "The Early Years of the Situa-tionist International, 1957-1965." It includes brief accounts of several principal artists associated with the...