085-089 debord - one more try if you want to be situationists (the s. i. in and against...

8/20/2019 085-089 Debord - One More Try if You Want to Be Situationists (the S. I. in and Against Decomposition)

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One More

Try

If You

Want to

Be

Situationists

(The

S.I.

in and

against Decomposition)*

GUY

DEBORD

To Mohamed Dahou

The collective task we have set ourselves is the creation of a new cultural

theater

of

operations,

placed hypothetically

at the level of an eventual

general

construction of

its

surroundings

through

the

preparation, depending

on

circum-

stances,

of the terms

of

the

environment/behavior

dialectic. The

depletion

of

modern forms of art and

style

is all

too

obvious;

and

analysis

of this

steady

trend

leads us to the

conclusion that

in

order to overcome

the

general

cultural

picture,

wherein we see a

state of

decomposition

hat has

arrived

at

its

final

historical

stage

(for

the

definition of this

term,

cf.

"Rapport

sur la

construction des

situations"),

one

must seek a

higher organization

of the

means of action

in

this

period

of

our

culture.

That

is,

we

must foresee and

experiment

with what lies

beyond

the

present

atomiza-

tion of wornout traditional

arts,

with a new state of the world whose most

consistent

premise

will be urbanism

and the

daily

life

of an

emerging

society-and

not

go

back

to

some coherent

unity

or

other.

We

can

clearly

see that

the

development

of this

task

presupposes

a

revolution

that

has

yet

to take

place,

and

that

any

research is

restricted

by

the contradictions of the

present.

The Situationist

International

exists

in

name,

but

that

means

nothing

but

the

beginning

of an

attempt

to build

beyond

the

decomposition

in

which

we,

like

everyone

else,

are

completely

involved.

Becoming

aware of

our real

possibilities requires

both the

recognition

of

the

pre-

Situationist-in the

strict sense of the

word-nature of

whatever we can

attempt,

and

the

rupture,

without

looking

back,

with the

division

of

labor n the

arts. The

main

danger

lies

in

these

two

errors: the

pursuit

of

fragmentary

works

combined

with

simple-minded

proclamations

of

an

alleged

new

stage.

At this

moment

the

decomposition

shows

nothing

more

than a

slow radical-

ization of

moderate

innovators

toward

positions

where outcast

extremists

had

already

found

themselves

eight

or ten

years

ago.

But far from

drawing

a

lesson

from

those fruitless

experiments,

the

"respectable"

innovators

further

dilute their

importance.

I

will take

examples

from

France,

which

surely

is

undergoing

the

most advanced

phenomena

of the

general

cultural

decomposition

that,

for

various

reasons,

is

being

manifested

in its

purest

state

n

Western

Europe.

* Potlatch29

(November

5,

1957),

n.p.

OCTOBER

9,

Winter

1997,

pp.

85-142.

Translation

1997 October

Magazine,

Ltd.

and

Massachusetts

Institute

of

Technology.



OCTOBER

Reading

Alain

Robbe-Grillet's first

two columns

in

France-Observateur

(October 10 and 17),1 one is struck by the fact that he is a timid Isou (in his

arguments,

as

in

the

"daring"

spirit

of his

novels),

as

when he claims "to

belong

to the

History

of

forms,

which

in

the

final

analysis

is

the best

(and

perhaps

only)

criterion for

recognizing

a

work

of

art." With

a

banality

of

thought

and

expres-

sion that ends

up

being quite

personal

("let

me

repeat,

it

is

better to take risks

than

to settle

for

a

sure

error"),

and much

less invention and

audacity,

he hear-

kens back to

the same linear

perception

of artistic

movement,

a mechanistic idea

whose

function is to reassure: "Art

goes

on,

or

else

it dies. We are

among

those

who have

chosen

to

go

on." To

go straight

on.

Who,

in

1957,

reminds him

by

direct

analogy

of Baudelaire?

Claude Simon-"all the

values

of

the

past

...

would seem in any case to prove it." (This appearance of proof in claims for a

direct

lineage

is due

precisely

to the

denial of all

dialectics,

of

any

real

change.)

Indeed,

everything

that

has been

put

forward,

of

any

interest at

all,

since

the

last

war

naturally

takes

its

place

in the

extreme

decomposition,

but with more or less

of a

desire to

look

beyond.

This desire

gets

smothered

by

economic and cultural

ostracism and also

by

the lack

of ideas and

proposals-these

two

aspects

being

interdependent.

The

best-known art

appearing

in

our time is

controlled

by

those

who

know "how

far to

go

too

far."

(See

the endless

and

profitable

death throes

of

post-Dadaist

painting,

which

is

usually presented

as a Dadaism in

reverse,

and

whereby they

mutually congratulate

each other.

Their

aspirations

and their

enemies are cut to size.) Robbe-Grillet modestly renounces the title of avant-

gardist

(when

one does not

even have an authentic

"avant-garde"

view

of

the

1. Alain

Robbe-Grillet,

"Ecrire

pour

son

temps,"

France-Observateur,

ctober

10,

1957,

p.

17,

and

"Litterature

aujourd'hui:

I1

n'y

a

pas 'd'avant-garde',"

France-Observateur,

ctober

17,

1957,

p.

19. Ed.

; ii.

AsgerJorn.

"We

ive

subject

to

change,

because

if

you

will allow me to say so, that is the law of

the

country

we

live

in."

Bossuet

86



The S.I.

in

and

against

Decomposition

decomposition

phase,

one

might

as well

reject

its

inconveniences-especially

the noncommercial aspect). He will be content to be a "novelist of today," but,

outside

the

little cohort of

his

fellows,

it

must

be

admitted that the others are

quite

simply

a

"rearguard."

And he

courageously

takes

issue with Michel

de

Saint-Pierre,

which

suggests

that

by talking

about cinema

he

would bestow on

himself

the

glory

of

insulting Gourguet,

while

hailing

the

present-day

cinema of

an

Astruc.

Actually,

Robbe-Grillet is

up

to

date

for a

certain social

group,

just

as

Michel

de Saint-Pierre

is

up

to date

for a

public

made

up

of

another class. Both

are

very

much

"of

today"

in

relation

to

their

audiences,

and

nothing

more,

to

the

extent

to

which

they exploit,

with different

sensibilities,

neighboring

degrees

of

a traditional

mode

of

cultural action. It

is

no

big

deal to be

up

to

date:

one is only more or less part of the decomposition. Originality now wholly depends

on

a

leap

to

a

higher

level.

It is their

timidity

that

keeps people

from

looking

beyond

the

decomposition.

Unable

to see

anything

after the

present

structures,

and

knowing

them

well

enough

to

sense

that

they

are

doomed,

they

would

like

to

destroy

hem

piecemeal,

while

leaving

something

for the

next

generation.

They

are

comparable

to

political

reformers,

impotent

but

just

as harmful:

living

on

the

sale of false remedies.

Anyone

who

can-

not conceive a radical

transformation

is

propping

up

the

arrangements

of the

status

quo-practiced

with

elegance-and

is

separated only by

a few

chronological

prefer-

ences from

those consistent reactionaries who

(whether

politically

of

the

right

or

the left) would like to see a return to earlier (more solid) stages of the culture that is

breaking

down.

Francoise

Choay's

naive art

criticism

is

quite representative

of

the

tastes

of

the

"free intellectuals

of

the left" who

constitute the

chief

social

base of

this

timid

cultural

decomposition,

and

when

she

writes

(France-Observateur,

October

17)

"The

path

taken

by

Francken

...

is

presently

one

of

painting's

Michble ernstein.

- i- : t:.

~~i~~ ~ I

i

This

medley f

blue

sashes,

adies,cuirasses,

violins

in

the

hall,

and

trumpets

in

the

square,provideda spectaclemoreoftenseen

in

novels han

elsewhere."

Retz

87



OCTOBER

chances for

survival,"2

she

betrays

concerns

fundamentally

akin to those of Zhdanov

("Did we do the right thing ... in putting to rout the liquidators of painting?").

We are locked into relations

of

production

that contradict the

necessary

development

of

productive

forces,

in

the

sphere

of

culture

as well.

We

must

breach

these

traditional

relations,

the

arguments

and

fashions

they

support.

We

must direct

ourselves

beyond

present-day

culture,

by

a

clear-eyed

ritique of

existing spheres

and

their

integration

into

a

single space-time

construction

(the

situation:

a

dynamic system

in

an environment and

playful

behavior)

that will

bring

about

a

higher harmony ofform

and content.

But these

prospects,

in

themselves,

cannot

in

any way

validate current

produc-

tions that

naturally

take on

meaning

in

relation to

the

prevailing

confusion,

and

that includes in our own minds as well. Among us, useful theoretical

propositions

may

be contradicted

by

actual

works limited

to

old sectors

(on

which

it is

necessary

to

act

first,

since for

the

moment

they

are alone

in

possessing

a common

reality).

Or often

other

comrades,

who

have

made

interesting

experiments

on

particular

points,

get

sidetracked

in

outdated

theories:

thus W.

Olmo,

who is not

lacking

in

good

will,

in

order

to

connect his

experiments

in

sound with the

construction

of

environments,

employs

such defective formulations

in

a recent

text submitted to

the

Situationist International

("For

a

Concept

of Musical

Experimentation")

that the

whole

thing

had

to be

refocused

("Remarks

on

the

Concept

of

Experimental

Art"),

a

discussion

that,

in

my

opinion,

no

longer

offers even

the

memory

of a

reality.3

2.

Francoise

Choay,

"Lavie des arts:

Actualit6

de

l'expressionisme,"

France-Observateur,

ctober

17,

1957,

p.

20.

Choay

was

speaking

of the

painter

Ruth

Francken,

who

was

exhibiting

work with two

other

artists

at the

Galerie

Stadler. Ed.

3.

Walter

Olmo,

a member of

the

Italian section of the

S.I.,

had

presented

his text

to

the

group

in

September

1957. Debord's

response

was issued on October

15, 1957,

and

denounced Olmo and

his

supporters

for

their

idealism and

conservatism.

When Olmo refused

to

retract the

text,

he was

i

J"i':~~~~ ...':,

i

'i

"I

rose

early

above

the chimeras

of religion,

perfectly

convinced that the existence

of

the

creator s a revolting absurditythat children

no

longer

venbelieve

n."

Sade

88



The SI.

in

and

against Decomposition

Just

as there

is

no "Situationism"

as

doctrine,

one must not let certain former

experiments be called Situationist achievements-or everything to which our

ideological

and

practical

weakness now

limits us.

But,

on the other

hand,

we

cannot concede even

a

temporary

value to

mystification.

The abstract

empirical

fact that constitutes

this or that manifestation of

today's

decayed

culture

only

takes

on

concrete

meaning

by

its connection with

the

overall vision

of an end or a

beginning

of

civilization.

Which

is to

say

that in the

long

run our seriousness

can

integrate

and

surpass mystification,

as well as whatever

promotes

it as evidence

of

an actual historical state

of

decayed thought.

LastJune

witnessed a

scandal when a

film

I

had

made

in

1952

was screened

in London.4 It was not a hoax and still

less a

Situationist

achievement,

but

one that

depended

on

complex

literary

motivations

of that time (works on the cinema of Isou, Marco, Wolman), and thus fully

participated

in

the

phase

of

decay,

precisely

in

its

most extreme

form,

without

even

having-except

for a few

programmatic

allusions-the wish for

positive

developments

that characterized

the works to which I've

just

alluded.

Afterward,

the

same London audience

(Institute

of

Contemporary

Arts)

was treated

to

some

paintings

executed

by

chimpanzees,

which bear

comparison

with

respectable

action

painting.

This

proximity

seems

to

me instructive.

Passive consumers of culture

(one

can well understand

why

we count

on

the

possibility

of active

participation

in a

world

in which

"aesthetes"

will be

forgotten)

can love

any

manifestation

of

decomposition (they

would be

right

in

the sense that these manifestations

are

precisely

those that best

express

their

period

of crisis and decline, but one can

see that

they

prefer

those that

slightly

disguise

this

state).

I

believe

that

in

another

five

or

six

years they

will

come

to love

my

film

and

the

paintings

of

apes,

just

as

they already

love Robbe-Grillet. The

only

real difference between the

paintings

of

apes

and

my

complete cinematographic

work to date is its

possible

threatening

meaning

for

the culture around

us,

namely,

a

wager

on certain formations of the

future.

And I

wouldn't know on which side to

put

Robbe-Grillet,

when

you stop

to

think that at certain moments

of

rupture

one

is

either aware

or

not of

a

qualitative

turning point;

and

if

not,

the nuances don't matter.

But our

wager always

has to be

renewed,

and

it

is we ourselves who

produce

the various chances to

respond.

We wish to transform these times

(to

which

everything

we

love,

beginning

with

our

experimental

attitude,

also

belongs)

and

not to "write for

it,"

as

self-satisfied

vulgarity

intends:

Robbe-Grillet and his times

are made

for

each other. On the

contrary,

our ambitions

are

clearly megalomaniac,

but

perhaps

not measurable

by

the

prevailing

criteria

of

success.

I

believe all

my

friends would be content to

work

anonymously

at the

Ministry

of

Leisure

in

a

government

that would

finally

undertake to

change

life,

along

with the salaries of

qualified

workers.

excluded from

the

group

in

January

1958. Cf. Steward

Home,

The Assault on Culture

(Stirling,

Scotland: AIC Press, 1991), p. 32. Ed.

4.

For an account

of the

June

1957

screening

of

Hurlements n

faveur

de

Sade,

see

Guy

Atkins,

Asger

Jorn:

The

Crucial

Years,

954-1964

(London:

Lund

Humphries,

1977),

pp.

57-58. Ed.

89

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