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The Fifth SI Conference
in Göteborg
(excerpts)
The 5th Conference of the Situationist International was held in Göteborg [Gothenburg], Sweden, 28-30 August 1961, eleven months after the London Conference. The
situationists of nine countries were represented by Ansgar-Elde, Debord, J. de Jong,
Kotányi, D. Kunzelmann, S. Larsson, J.V. Martin, Nash, Prem, G. Stadler, Hardy Strid, H.
Sturm, R. Vaneigem, Zimmer. [...]
Next the Conference hears an orientation report by Vaneigem, who says notably:
The Situationist International finds itself, due both to the present
historical conjuncture and to its internal evolution, at a stage of development
such that the activity it considers itself capable of carrying out, within the
world of bureaucratization and reification, depends henceforth on its ability to
maintain critical rigor, a rigor that will serve as a cohesive force. Its
weakness in the face of the tasks to come and of the foreseeable repression can
be turned into a strength only if each of its members is clearly aware of what
threatens him personally and what threatens the nature and aims of the SI
itself. This is the price of sectional autonomy.
The existing world, in both its capitalist and its supposedly
anticapitalist variants, organizes life in the form of spectacles. . . . The point is not to elaborate
a spectacle of refusal, but to refuse the
spectacle. In order for their elaboration to be artistic in the new and authentic
sense defined by the SI, the elements of the destruction of the spectacle must precisely
cease to be works of art. There is no such thing as situationism, or a
situationist work of art, or a spectacular situationist. Once and for all.
Such a perspective means nothing if it is not directly
linked to revolutionary praxis, to the desire to change life (which is
not at all the same as merely changing the bosses of existing
occupations). [...]
Our position is that of combatants between two worlds —
one that we don’t acknowledge, the other that does not yet exist. We have to
bring the two together, to hasten the end of a world, the disaster where the
situationists will recognize their own.
[...] The second session begins with reports from the various sections,
primarily concerning the publication and translation of SI texts. The
Scandinavian section also raises the issue of the production of experimental
films in Sweden, in which several of its members have been collectively
involved. The Swedes present in Göteborg have been
discussing among themselves which of these films attain a level worthy of being
termed “situationist,”
and ask the Conference to help settle this question. Debord replies that since
he himself has never made a situationist film, he is in no position to judge.(1)
Kunzelmann expresses a strong skepticism as to the powers the SI can bring
together in order to act on the level envisaged by Vaneigem. Kotányi responds to Nash and
Kunzelmann: “Since the beginning of the movement there has been a problem as to what
to call artistic works by members of the SI. It was understood that none of them was a
situationist production, but what to call them? I propose a very simple rule:
to call them ‘antisituationist.’ We are
against the dominant conditions of artistic inauthenticity. I don’t mean that
anyone should stop painting, writing, etc. I don’t mean that that has no value.
I don’t mean that we could continue to exist without doing that. But at the same
time we know that such works will be coopted(2) by the society and used against us.
Our impact lies in the elaboration of certain truths which have an explosive
power as soon as people are ready to struggle for them. The movement is only in
its infancy regarding the elaboration of these essential points. It has yet to
attain the degree of purity found in modern explosives. Until we attain this
purity, i.e. this necessary degree of clarity, we cannot count on the explosive
effects of our approaches to everyday life and to the critique of everyday life.
I urge you not to forget that our present productions are antisituationist. The
clarity that comes from recognizing this fact is indispensable for attaining any
greater clarification. If we sacrifice this principle, Kunzelmann would be right
in a negative sense: the SI would be unable to attain the most meager power.”
The responses to Kotányi’s proposal are all favorable. It is noted that would-be
avant-garde artists are beginning to appear in various countries who have no connection
with the SI but who refer to themselves as adherents of “situationism” or
describe their works as being more or less situationist. This trend is obviously going
to increase and it would be hopeless for the SI to try and prevent it. While various
confused artists nostalgic for a positive art call themselves situationist, antisituationist
art will be the mark of the best artists, those of the SI, since genuinely situationist
conditions have as yet not at all been created. Admitting this is the mark of a
situationist.
With one exception, the Conference unanimously decides to adopt this rule of
antisituationist art, binding on all members of the SI. Only Nash objects, his spite and
indignation having become increasingly sharp throughout the whole debate, to the point of
uncontrolled rage. [...]
Prem resumes in more detail the objections of his friends to Kotányi’s
perspectives. He agrees with calling our art antisituationist; and also with the
project of organizing a
situationist base. But he does not think the SI’s tactics are good. There is talk of
people’s dissatisfaction and revolt, but in his view, as his tendency already
expressed it at London, “most people are still primarily interested in comfort and
conveniences.” He feels that the SI systematically neglects its real chances in
culture. It rejects favorable occasions to intervene in existing cultural politics,
whereas, in his view, the SI has no power but its power in culture — a power which
could be very great and which is visibly within our reach. The SI majority sabotages the
chances for effective action on the terrain where it is possible. It castigates artists
who might be capable of accomplishing something, and it throws them out the moment they
get in a position to accomplish anything. [...]
Other German situationists strongly oppose Prem, some of them accusing him of having
expressed positions in their name that they do not share (but it seems, rather, that Prem
simply had the frankness to clearly express the line that dominates in the German
section). Finally the Germans come around to agreeing that none of them conceives of
theory as separate from its practical results. With this the third session is adjourned in
the middle of the night, not without violent agitation and uproar (from one side there
are shouts of “Your theory is going to fly right back in your faces!” and from
the other, “Cultural pimps!”). [...]
The German situationists stress the
urgency, already made evident by the Conference, for them to unify their positions and
projects with the rest of the SI. Kunzelmann feels that a useful focus for this
discussion could be Vaneigem’s report, which they will carefully study when they
are back in Germany. The Germans also commit to rapidly augmenting their
propagation and elaboration of situationist theory, as they have already begun
to do in issues #5 and #6 of their journal Spur. On their request, the Conference adds Attila
Kotányi and J. de Jong to the editorial committee of Spur in order to verify
this process of unification. (But in January this decision is flouted by their putting
out, without Kotányi and de Jong’s knowledge, an issue #7 marking a distinct
regression from the preceding ones — which leads to the exclusion of those
responsible.) [...]
It is voted to hold the 6th Conference at Anvers, after the rejection of the
Scandinavian proposal to hold it secretly in Warsaw. The Conference does decide, however,
to send a delegation of three situationists to Poland to develop our contacts there. [...]
SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
1962
[TRANSLATOR’S NOTES]
1. Debord’s modesty here is wickedly ironic, as
he had by this time completed three films that were unquestionably of higher
quality and more “situationist” than anything the Scandinavians may have
produced.
(The soundtracks of two of those early films were
included in the original edition of the SI Anthology. They are omitted
from the new edition since the complete filmscripts are now available in a
separate volume.)
2. I previously translated the French term récupération
as “recuperation,”
but that word normally has a different sense in English. Upon reconsideration I
believe the term is adequately, and more clearly, rendered by “cooption.”
“La cinquičme conférence de l’I.S.
ŕ Göteborg”
originally appeared in Internationale Situationniste #7 (Paris, April
1962). This translation by Ken Knabb is from the
Situationist
International Anthology (Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006). No copyright.
[Other Situationist Texts]
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