WEEK NINE: SITUATIONISM AND RADICAL THEORY

The topic of discussion today was The Society of the Spectacle which is a book written by Guy Debord. We had a little bit of preliminary discussion of our thoughts on the book before we finished off the class by watching the movie. It was very interesting but I am glad we took mini breaks between because the English subtitles were hard to read and the French narration was quite monotonous and I was worried I would fall asleep even though the film was engaging!

In our discussion we made some quick points.

• Debord was clearly a Marxist in his way of thinking. and that society at large is dark because we let ourselves be controlled
• the media does not always guarantee truth. We are consumed by the media and it was made to mold us to what society deems correct
• he did believe there was a way out of the spectacle and there is hope. He was a political activist. He sparked the 1968 almost revolution. Students to workers who were not authorized by unions stopped working. Over 1/5 of the workforce in Paris.
• The spectacle always lives in the present and is the social relation of images. Meditated by images
• The only real relation between people is through mediated images. The spectacle does away with history and the future. If the worker is always in the present, there is not hope for the future.
• The spectacle oppresses and represses the workers. 
• We have to use images to disrupt the spectacle. 
• Derive (way to, with our own body and movement, move with political leisure) and strategy. SI: Situationist (post-marxistsocialist) were the group he created and led. What if you moved through space not to do work?
• psychogeography: why space is what it is
• Michel Creterau (situationist piece) how to move the body to subvert mind and body
• Revolution happens through the individual. through the body
• Performance art comes around this time. 
• what it means to "soft-machine." to have your body owned by the state
• It was a call to arms.
• Even now the spectacle exists. It is our social relationship between people through mediated images. 
• religion is no longer needed. Media is the new religion.
• He made his film in 1973. He didn't necessarily want it to be a collection film but that's what it became. He had always been interested in film.
• His book really acts like a spectacle. It has no linear narrative, and you see only flashes of think thinking. He said it almost works like a script.
• His group of Situationists did not last long. He kicked out most of the founding members and then eventually disbanded the group. 
• The film was dedicated to his second wife Alice Becker.