"The Autumn 2008 season of Conversations hosted by Rethinking Cities opens with Alan James Bullion posing the question: "Are we bored with Debord? What can we derive from his concept of drift in the modern city?"
It is forty years since Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” triggered civil unrest in the streets of Paris.
As the leader of the political art movement known as the Situationists in the early 1960’s, Guy Debord was a proponent of the ‘derive’, to walk through, was to understand the city and its class struggles.
Alan Bullion is the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Sevenoaks poses the question: "Are we bored with Debord? What can we derive from his concept of drift in the modern city?"
This Conversation will take place on the evening of Wednesday 29 October 2008 at the Royal Commonwealth Society, Northumberland Avenue, London.
Click here to register for this or other Conversations
Even if Debord's ideas are shaped in a different historical context, I think this topic is not at all anachronistic and that we can still learn a lot from him.
Read on line The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord translated in English here or in French [original text] here or take a look at these short videos from a video documentary about Guy Debord's Situationist movement and you will see why.
Situationalist International - Part 1 of 3
Situationalist International - Part 2 of 3
Situationalist International - Part 3 of 3
"The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having — human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed.
The present stage, in which social life has become completely dominated by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing — all “having” must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances.
At the same time all individual reality has become social, in the sense that it is shaped by social forces and is directly dependent on them. Individual reality is allowed to appear only if it is not actually real. " Guy Debord : The Society of the Spectacle
