Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen & Jakob Jakobsen: Expect Anything Fear Nothing

Exploding as politically revolutionary at the heart of the Paris 1968 uprisings, the Situationist International has proved a tenaciously compelling radical movement in terms of asthetics and political theory.This crucially important book is not only a philosophical landmark, it is also a cult classic that has has established the Situationist movement -- of which Debord was the key member -- as one of the most influential of the twentieth century.This new translation by John McHale is the first officially authorised in English. The book has previously been available only in underground or online formats, so McHale's work promises to bring the work of the Situationists to an even wider audience.The Real Split in the International sees Debord not only evaluate the movement as a whole, but also signal the end of it. For him, it had become clear that the Situationist's success had produced -- within its own ranks as well as outside them -- a host of fans and 'onlookers' who amounted to little more than consumers of a radicality that had become fashionable. In this way the movement had begun to encompass the very 'society of the spectacle' that the Situationists had challenged. There was a danger that Situationist theory could turn into ideology -- Debord's reaction was to break up the movement. About The Translator John McHale has translated Alice Becker-Ho's Les Princes du Jargon, her L'Essence du Jargon and Guy Debord's Panégyrique Volume 2. He lives in London.Guy Debord was a revolutionary theorist, a film-maker, the indisputable head of the Situationists, and a key figure in the constellation of French theorists and intellectuals from the 1960s onwards. He committed suicide in 1995 at the age of 63. Identifying everyday life as the terrain of revolutionary activity, he added new and apposite dimensions to Marxist thinking in the late twentieth century:The Society of the Spectacle, his seminal work, characterised a society resting not only on the alienated labour of workers, but on the alienated lives of spectators.

This is the first ever English-language anthology collecting texts and documents from the still little-known Scandinavian part of the Situationist movement. The book covers over three decades of writing, from Asger Jorn’s Luck and Chance published in 1953, to the statements of the Situationist Antinational set up by Jens Jørgen Thorsen and J.V. Martin in 1974. The writings collected gravitate around the year 1962 when the Situationist movement went through it’s most dynamic and critical moments, and the disagreements about the relationship between art and politics came to a culmination, resulting in exclusions and the split of the Situationist International. The Situationists did not win, and the almost forgotten Scandinavian fractions even less so. The book broadens the understanding of the Situationist movement by bringing into view the wild and unruly activities of the Scandinavian fractions of the organisation and the more artistic, experimental, and actionist attitude that characterised them. They did, nevertheless, constitute a decisive break with the ruling socio-economic order through their project of bringing into being new forms of life. Only an analysis of the multifaceted and often contradictory Situationist revolution will allow us to break away from the dull contemplation of yet another document of Debord’s archive or yet another drawing by Jorn. There is a lot to be learned from the history of revolutionary failure. It is along these lines that this book points forward beyond the crisis-ridden capitalist order that survives today. Texts by: Asger Jorn, Jørgen Nash, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, Bauhaus Situationniste, Jacqueline de Jong, Gordon Fazakerley, Gruppe SPUR, Dieter Kunzelman, J.V. Martin, and Guy Debord. Translated by: Peter Shield, James Manley, Anja Buchele, Matthew Hyland, Fabian Tompsett, and Jakob Jakobsen. Bio: Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen is an art historian and political theorist. He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and has published books and articles on the revolutionary tradition and modern art. Jakob Jakobsen is an artist and political organizer. He ran the Copenhagen Free University, cofounded the artist run TV station tvtv and has participated in exhibitions all over the world. 304 pages, 5.75 x 8