143 lines
8.1 KiB
Plaintext
143 lines
8.1 KiB
Plaintext
OBITUARY: GUY DEBORD
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FREEDOM INTERNATIONAL SECTION 84B, WHITECHAPEL HIGH ST.
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LONDON E1
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THE AUTHOR OF SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE HAS KILLED HIMSELF
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Last Curtain Call for Guy Debord
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We don't know how he died and still less why. We only know
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that Guy Debord, around evening time on Wednesday 30th
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November, took his life; the life that in the last few years
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he himself - perhaps the last of the Situationists still
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partly faithful to his own image of the resolute enemy of
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the society of the spectacle - helped to make more
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mysterious, more evanescent more elsewhere. Paradoxically
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one could say that in reality death has brought him back to
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life, in the sense that it has re-established the human
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reality (death being our common destiny) of a character
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whose notoriety and uncompromising stance of refusal would
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make of existence a long theatrical piece, in which he would
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improvise up until the end. But who was Guy Debord? There
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are several answers, but at the same time such answers would
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preclude the understanding of his identity as indefinable.
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Writer? Film director? Situationalist? 'Doctor in
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nothing...' as he liked to define himself in one of his
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latest books? Of course all those things, but simply because
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they are 'things' - which comes down to things he did - they
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certainly do not reveal the whole man. It isn't for nothing
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that the numerous French dailies which reported the news of
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his suicide, not only didn't say how or why he died, neither
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did they say anything about him, limiting themselves to an
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inventory of the things he did, the things he said, how he
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did them, how he said them but forgetting to say who, Guy
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Debord, was. In reality it was the self-imposed mystery
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which created the impenetrable and adventurist aura, barely
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available to the media and prone to violent argument; Guy
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Debord liked to hide his true self behind a blanket of
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gossip, speculation and even spite in his dealings with
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others, and to never let it see daylight. For the rest, for
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someone who wrote a book: The Society of the Spectacle,
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where the world is seen as a spectacle - which is to say a
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false image which the economic system produces of itself in
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order to dominate society - visibility was to be totally
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denied. Thus the rare photos which he consciously planned so
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that they should be published in his lifetime - were the
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most hazy in the world and to a fair degree made him look
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younger than his real age. Certainly, invisibility was
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imperative!
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It was not by chance that his first public work was a film
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Hurlement en faveur de Sade (1952), in which there is no
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picture and the spectator - truly stupefied by this purely
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surrealist provocation - watched an alternated sequence of
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white and then black screens, whilst listening to a mixture
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of atonal dialogues involving numerous people leading up to
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a silent, black screen for 24 minutes. This was the first
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gauntlet against the spectacle thrown down by Guy Debord who
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fought this battle throughout his life; a death sentence for
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the cinema, at the time considered as the essence of the
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artistic product of bourgeois society and for that reason
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the extreme synthesis of its values in full decomposition,
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since it expressed not the construction of a situation which
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aimed to shed light on everyday life but rather a system of
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falsification of reality in order to suppress it and
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supplant it by means of a series of images aimed at cutting
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the individual off from his daily existence and making of
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him an illusory participant in the spectacle of consumer
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society in his role as good/product of the spectacle.
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The setting up in 1957 of the Situationist International was
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partly the logical consequence of these artistic
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presuppositions. Coming out of the European cultural milieu
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as the convergence of several artistic experiences (COBRA,
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the Lettrist International, the Movement for Bauhaus Cinema,
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the London Psychogeographical Society) the SI from day one
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aimed to represent - above all via Debord who was the editor
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of its statement of principles - a critique of art brought
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into being by the necessity of superseding it by creating
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liberated situations in which life can effectively
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experience its own possibilities and not become enclosed in
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the repetitive role models that the society of the spectacle
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constructs in order to dominate and exploit. But already in
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those early years the different heads of the SI quarrelled
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amongst themselves and Debord - who alone amongst them
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represented the most coherent position with his objective of
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achieving a total critique of art and a whole culture
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skewered towards the production of values separated from
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everyday life (and for that reason incapable of achieving
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its own radical transformation) - came out better from
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confrontations with those who presupposed the replacement of
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art as simply a repeat of the architectural and urban
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argument which aimed to make works of art no longer on
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canvas but in the physical space of a city.
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But the first years of the 60s saw a U turn in the politics
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of the SI, and coincided with Debord's political phase,
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which saw an achievement of sorts in making of the
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organisation - now nearly purged of any artistic content -
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the rallying point between the experience of the European
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cultural avant guard and the experience of politico-
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revolutionary groupings, in France represented by some
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journals (Arguments and Socialisme et Barbarie) of a
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revisionary Marxist leaning. These were the years when
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Debord participated in the seminars of Lefebvre at Nanterre
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and during which he developed his critique of daily life
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which had already been expounded by this philosopher and
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sociologist from Nanterre in the late 50s. The critique of
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everyday life - the baby sister of theories of
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alienation/separation produced by the spectacular society,
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became the theoretical underpinnings of the SI and the theme
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of his most famous book, already mentioned, in which the
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theoretical and organisational experience of the workers
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council ... represented the political and revolutionary
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dnouement of the situationist theory. The Strasbourg scandal
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and Paris 68 showed not so much that Debord and the SI were
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gaining influence (as has always been claimed by the
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historical hagiographer of the movement), but rather the
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fortuitous meeting - and in many ways prospicious - between
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the combative and revolutionary practice of the movement of
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68 and the necessity to find an outlet for situationist
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theory. If there had been no May 68 in France, would the SI
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have become what it seemed to be after the event (that is
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the high point of modern revolution)? And would the work of
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Debord have come to seem clairvoyant and prophetic, as was
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claimed by numerous commentators who proclaim his books on
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the social spectacle to be the only texts able to give a
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sense - sorry: a vision - to what happened in the East as
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well as the West? All these considerations lead back to the
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unanswered question of who Guy Debord was; a man who, at the
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age of 62, decided to put an end to his life and to
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foreclose his real life story asking forgiveness for his own
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mistakes. But the truth of his story will still have to be
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reconstructed by reference to his work which he has left to
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posterity with the intention of becoming the first invisible
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personality of the society of the spectacle. Will we ever
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know the truth?
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GIANFRANCO MARELLI FAI Milan Trans from Le Monde Libertaire
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21 Dec. 94
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