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Debord
Guy-Ernest Debord (; ; 28 December 1931 – 30 November 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International. He was also briefly a member of '' Socialisme ou Barbarie''. Biography Early life Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931. Debord's father, Martial, was a pharmacist who died when Debord was young. Debord's mother, Paulette Rossi, sent Guy to live with his grandmother in her family villa in Italy. During World War II, the Rossis left the villa and began to travel from town to town. As a result, Debord attended high school in Cannes, where he began his interest in film and vandalism. The family lived in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques for a period where he attended Lycée Louis-Barthou. As a young man, Debord actively opposed the French war in Algeria and joined in demonstrations in Paris against it. Debord studied law at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Situationist International
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism. Essential to situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, a unified critique of advanced capitalism of which a primary concern was the progressively increasing tendency towards the expression and mediation of social relations through objects. The situationists believed that the shift from individual expression through directly li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectacle (critical Theory)
The spectacle is a central notion in the Situationist International, Situationist theory, developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book ''The Society of the Spectacle''. In the general sense, the spectacle refers to "the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign." It also exists in a more limited sense, where ''spectacle'' means the mass media, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation." Debord said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the late 1920s. The critique of the spectacle is a development and application of Karl Marx's concept of fetishism of commodities, Reification (Marxism), reification and Marx's theory of alienation, alienation,Guy Debord (1967''Society of the Spectacle''. (Paris, June 1967). Chapter I: Separation Perfected./ref> and the way it was reprised by György Lukács in 1923. In the society of the spectacle, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychogeography
Psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International, which were revolutionary groups influenced by Marxist and anarchist theory as well as the attitudes and methods of Dadaists and Surrealists. In 1955, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." One of the key tactics for exploring psychogeography is the loosely defined urban walking practice known as the ''dérive''. As a practice and theory, psychogeography has influenced a broad set of cultural actors, including artists, activists and academics. Development Psychogeography was originally developed by the Lettrist International 'around the summer of 1953'. Debord describes psychogeography as 'charmingly vag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dérive
The ''dérive'' (, "drift") is a revolutionary strategy originally put forward in the "Theory of the Dérive" (1956) by Guy Debord, a member at the time of the Letterist International. Debord defines the ''dérive'' as "a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances." It is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants drop their everyday relations and "let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there". Though solo ''dérives'' are possible, Debord indicates that the most fruitful numerical arrangement consists of several small groups of two or three people who have reached the same level of awareness, since cross-checking these different groups' impressions makes it possible to arrive at more objective conclusions.The ''dérive'' goals include studying the terrain of the city (psychogeography) and emotional disorientatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Letterist International
The Letterist International (LI) was a Paris-based collective of radical artists and cultural theorists between 1952 and 1957. It was created by Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman rejoined by Jean-Louis Brau and Serge Berna as a schism from Isidore Isou's Lettrist group. The group went on to join others in forming the Situationist International, taking some key techniques and ideas with it.Kaufmann, Vincent (2011''Guy Debord'' for the ''Institut français''. English translation Guy Debord' by Martin Richet 'Letterist' was the form the group themselves used, as in their 1955 sticker: 'If you believe you have genius, or if you think you have only a brilliant intelligence, write the letterist internationale.' Though the spelling 'Lettrist' is also common in English, authors and translators such as Donald Nicholson-Smith, Simon Ford, Sadie Plant and Andrew Hussey use the 'Letterist International' spelling. The group was a motley assortment of novelists, sound poets, painters, film-makers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isidore Isou
Isidore Isou (; 29 January 1925 – 28 July 2007), born Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, dramaturge, novelist, film director, economist, and visual artist who lived in the 20th century. He was the founder of Lettrism, an art and literary movement which owed inspiration to Dada and Surrealism. An important figure in the mid-20th Century avant-garde, he is remembered in the cinema world chiefly for his revolutionary 1951 film '' Traité de Bave et d'Eternité,'' while his political writings are seen as foreshadowing the May 1968 movements. Early life Isidor Goldstein was born in 1925 to a prominent Jewish family in Botoşani. Despite his wealthy upbringing (his father was a successful entrepreneur and serial restaurateur), he left school at age 15, reading extensively at home and doing odd jobs. P. 14. In 1944 he began his literary career as an avant-garde art journalist during World War II, shortly after the 23 August coup that saw Romania joining the All ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodity Fetishism
In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people. As a form of reification, commodity fetishism presents economic value as inherent to the commodities, and not as arising from the workforce, from the human relations that produced the commodity, the goods and the services. In the first chapter of '' Capital: Critique of Political Economy'' (1867) commodity fetishism explicates that the social organization of labour occurs through the buying and selling of commodities (goods and services); therefore, in the marketplace, capitalist social relations among people—who makes what, who works for whom, the production-time for a commodity, etc.—are social relations among ''objects'', not among individual persons. At market, the commodities appear in a depersonalized form, as material goods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Détournement
A détournement (), meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),''Report on the Construction of Situations'' (1957) that was defined in the SI's inaugural 1958 journal as " e integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those means. In a more elementary sense, ''détournement'' within the old cultural spheres is a method of propaganda, a method which reveals the wearing out and loss of importance of those spheres." It has been defined elsewhere as "turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself"—as when slogans and logos are turned against their advertisers or the political status quo. Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, as well as a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to do so. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution." Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from both classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union. Less concerned with economic analysis than earlier schools of Marxist thought, Western Marxism placed greater emphasis on the study of the cultural trends of capitalist society, deploying the more philosophical and subjective aspects of Marxism, and incorporating non-Marxist approaches to investigating culture and historical development. An important theme was the origins of Karl Marx's thought in the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the recovery of what they called the "Young Marx" (the more humanistic early works of Marx). Although early figures, such as György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci were promine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectical materialism, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism. In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He founded or took part in the founding of several intellectual and academic journals such as ''Philosophies'', ''La Revue Marxiste'', ''Arguments'', ''Socialisme ou Barbarie'', ''Espaces et Sociétés''. Biography Lefebvre was born in Hagetmau, Landes, France. He studied philosophy at the University of Paris (the Sorbonne), graduating in 1920. By 1924 he was working with Paul Nizan, Norbert Guterman, Georges Friedmann, Georges Politzer, and Pierre Morhange in the ''Philosophies'' group seeking a "philosophical revolutio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
György Lukács
György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Marxist ideological orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution. As a literary critic Lukács was especially influential due to his theoretical developments of realism and of the novel as a literary genre. In 1919, he was appointed the Hungarian Minister of Culture of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic (Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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