Situationism: A Compendium

Book excerpt: After Guy Debord’s seminal Society of the Spectacle, this new compendium brings together eight other important situationist works. Ivan Chtcheglov opens proceedings via his Formulary for a New Urbanism (1953), with it’s quasi-mythical demand that resonated down through generations: “The hacienda must be built”, followed by two brief but illuminating pieces from Asger Jorn, who’s sandpaper book cover later turned up under the same Factory Records roof as Manchesters’ own Hacienda, on the Durrtti Column’s "Return of the Durrutti Column" ( the title itself lifted from Andre Bertrand's détourned pro-situ comic strip). Debord’s The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy-was an immediate, razor sharp response to the LA/Watts Riots of 1965, it’s analysis of the relationship between the rioter and the meaningless, unaffordable commodities they loot or destroy resonating heavily today. Tunisian situationist Mustapha Khayati contributes Address to Revolutionaries of Algeria and of All Countries and the game changing “On the Poverty of Student Life”, the match that arguably lit the fires of May 68’. Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life finishes things off in defiant fashion : “. You’re f*%@g Around With Us? — Not For Long!”