Micah White from Adbusters: French Situationist Art Movement

Micah is going to be speaking about the French movement The Situationist International, a extraordinary revolutionary artistic movement informed by Marxist critiques of capitalism. In particular, they focused on creating experiences and spaces for people to experience life outside of the spectacular, consumer-driven modern spectacle.

Guy Debord, a member of this group, articulated all of this beautifully in a book titled "La Société du spectacle" or "The Society of the Spectacle" wherein he argues that one of the primary means of control exerted by Capitalist society is the false reality created through the media, arguing that this spectacle both drains and controls the masses. It is both a politically and philosophically beautiful argument that riffed on the work of Jean Paul Sartre and borrowed heavily from Asger Jorn, his friend, visual artist, and fellow member of SI. The Situationist offered theater, music, and art as an antidote to Capitalist consumerism. They likewise argued against the Modernist resistance to the inclusion of politics in art, offering instead a vision of the arts as vital to politics and vice versa.