Tag Archives: Situationism

N° 4 dell’Internazionale Situazionista

variis58

Da principio fu la critica dell’arte e l’individuazione di snodi essenziali affinché l’arte, morta nelle sue forme, potesse finalmente esprimersi nella vita. Poi ci fu l’esercizio dell’arte della critica che si coniugò, nella misura possibile offerta dalla storia, con la sovversione sociale ed intellettuale. Questa può essere la sintesi del percorso dell’I.S. negli anni in cui fu attiva.
La scelta di pubblicare la collezione completa dei dodici numeri dell’Internazionale Situazionista, che coprono l’arco di undici anni, e di pubblicarla quasi fosse in facsimile ancorché ovviamente in traduzione italiana e finalmente corretta, nasce dal desiderio di fornire uno strumento a tutti coloro che vogliono inserirsi nella storia e nella pratica dell’intelligenza critica; togliere di mano agli “specialisti”, per lo più di nessun conto e valore, il monopolio della conoscenza dei testi.
Continue reading N° 4 dell’Internazionale Situazionista

A Cavalier History of Surrealism

31eFdhA5GWL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

Raoul Vaneigem

Author’s Note

Commissioned in 1970 by a French publisher who planned to issue a series intended for high-school pupils, this Histoire désinvolte du surréalisme was written in a couple of weeks under the pressure of a contractual deadline. The fact that the original bearer of the name chosen as a pseudonym, “Jules-François Dupuis”, was the janitor of the building where Lautréamont died, and a witness to his death certificate, should be a clear enough sign that this book is not one of those that are particularly dear to my heart; it was merely a diversion.

Continue reading A Cavalier History of Surrealism

Basic Banalities (1963)

7

Raoul Vaneigem

Part I

1

Bureaucratic capitalism has found its legitimation in Marx. I am not referring here to orthodox Marxism’s dubious merit of having reinforced the neocapitalist structures whose present reorganization is an implicit homage to Soviet totalitarianism; I am emphasizing the extent to which Marx’s most profound analyses of alienation have been vulgarized in the most commonplace facts, which, stripped of their magical veil and materialized in each gesture, have become the sole substance, day after day, of the lives of an increasing number of people. In a word, bureaucratic capitalism contains the palpable reality of alienation; it has brought it home to everybody far more successfully than Marx could ever have hoped to do, it has banalized it as the diminishing of material poverty has been accompanied by a spreading mediocrity of existence.
Continue reading Basic Banalities (1963)

Basic Banalities

index

Raoul Vaneigem

Part I

1

Bureaucratic capitalism has found its legitimation in Marx. I am not referring here to orthodox Marxism’s dubious merit of having reinforced the neocapitalist structures whose present reorganization is an implicit homage to Soviet totalitarianism; I am emphasizing the extent to which Marx’s most profound analyses of alienation have been vulgarized in the most commonplace facts, which, stripped of their magical veil and materialized in each gesture, have become the sole substance, day after day, of the lives of an increasing number of people. In a word, bureaucratic capitalism contains the palpable reality of alienation; it has brought it home to everybody far more successfully than Marx could ever have hoped to do, it has banalized it as the diminishing of material poverty has been accompanied by a spreading mediocrity of existence. As poverty has been reduced in terms of mere material survival, it has become more profound in terms of our way of life — this is at least one widespread feeling that exonerates Marx from all the interpretations a degenerate Bolshevism has derived from him. The “theory” of peaceful coexistence has accelerated such an awareness and revealed, to those who were still confused, that exploiters can get along quite well with each other despite their spectacular divergences.

Continue reading Basic Banalities