Before ’68

1968

BEFORE ‘68

Conference—”Before ’68: The Left, activism & social movements in the long 1960s”

Conference Dates: 13 and 14 February 2016

Venue: School of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK and hosted by UEA School of History in conjunction with the journal Socialist History and the Institute of Working Class History (Chicago).

The events of 1968, particularly those in France, have achieved a mythical status in both the memory and the historiography of the 1960s. For some, 1968 marked the end-point of a realignment of the European ‘New Left’. For others 1968 represented a student generation in revolt, and many of the first accounts which sought to explain the history and meaning of ’68 were written by that generation.

More recently historians have tried to demythologise ’68, looking both at less ‘glamourous’ locales and at the deeper histories of anti-colonial struggles and worker activism prior to the events of that year. The aim of this conference is to explore the diverse histories of social activism and left politics in Britain and elsewhere, and how they prepared the ground for and fed into ‘1968’.

Themes might include, but are not limited to:

• Anti-nuclear & peace movements
  Civil Rights struggles
  The Black Power movement
  Anti-colonial politics
  The activities of the Labour movement and the ‘traditional’ Left
  The grassroots activism of the ‘New Left’
  Far Left challenges: Trotskyism & Maoism
  Campaigns around housing and the built environment
  Campaigns around race and discrimination in the workplace and housing
  Solidarity movements with struggles abroad (e.g. South Africa, Vietnam)
  Campaigns for Homosexual Equality
  Second Wave Feminism

We are seeking papers of 5,000 to 10,000 words on any aspects of left activism and social movements in the period preceding 1968 to be presented at the conference. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the journal Socialist History. Attendance at the conference will be free of charge, but we ask that anyone wishing to attend registers in advance.

Proposals for papers and any enquiries should be submitted to Ben Jones.

Email: b.jones5@uea.ac.uk

Deadline for proposals for papers: 31 October 2015

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/call-for-papers-before-9268-the-left-activism-social-movements-in-the-long-1960s-1

 

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

Cosmonauts of the Future

Annihilate Creativity!

COSMONAUTS OF THE FUTURE

A first ever English-language anthology of the Scandinavian Situationists
Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere
Edited by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen & Jakob Jakobsen

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 fract ions 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 Ku nzelman, 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.

PDF available freely online: http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=666

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/cosmonauts-of-the-future-book-on-scandinavian-situationists-releases

2001

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

No Present: New Encounters in French and Italian Thought

No Future

NO PRESENT: NEW ENCOUNTERS IN FRENCH AND ITALIAN THOUGHT

March 13-14, 2015

Villanova University

Keynote: Jason E. Smith

The negotiation between French and Italian activists and intellectuals in the latter part of the twentieth century (marked by 1968 in France and 1977 in Italy) opened a field of theoretical experimentation, the effects of which pose a challenge for contemporary politics. This encounter materialized through various collectives, traversing the neat intellectual and practical boundaries of the academy. Whether through the images of intellectuals in the streets or through radical activist groups extending from the Situationist International to Tiqqun, the laboratory of French and Italian thought poses a constellation of conceptual weapons that remain vital for any contestation with the state of things. These implements have been successful in intervening within contemporary struggles on the level of theory, practice, and the construction of history in the present.

Under the inheritance of this tradition, this conference invites submissions from the interstices and margins of recent French and Italian philosophy. Possible paper topics include feminist recapitulations of post-workerism, the theoretical legacy of biopolitics as it is taken up in Agamben and Esposito, and the ongoing challenges for theory and practice posed by social movements extending from Latin America to the Mediterranean in the wake of events such as Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation.

Other topics include, but are not limited to:

• Post-Althusserian philosophy
• Decolonial challenges to eurocentric thought and strategies
• Wages for Housework and care economies
• Realism and contemporary cntologies
• Re-interpretations of the Gramscian legacy
• Philosophies of life and the problem of vitalism
• Lacanian psychoanalysis and its heritage
• French and Italian receptions of Spinoza, Hegel, and Marx
• Affect theory and imagination in cultural productions (e.g. film and media)
• Left Heideggarian reflections on community between Nancy and Agamben

 

The Philosophy Graduate Student Union at Villanova University welcomes graduate students and junior faculty to submit any of the following to be considered for our conference: paper abstracts of 250-350 words, papers of approximately 3000 words (including co-authored work) suitable for a 20 minute presentation, or proposed panels. Authors of accepted abstracts should send completed papers by March 1, 2015.

Please send submissions, prepared for blind review, by Dec. 21, 2014 to YUcont2015@gmail.com

This conference is committed to accommodating people with disabilities. Conference participants and attendees are encouraged to contact the above email address to discuss accommodations.

Villanova University (About): http://www1.villanova.edu/content/main/about.html

 

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.co.uk

 

Glenn Rikowski’s latest paper, Crises in Education, Crises of Education – can now be found at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/8953489/Crises_in_Education_Crises_of_Education

Marxism in Culture: Autumn Term Seminars 2014

Work & Days

MARXISM IN CULTURE: AUTUMN TERM SEMINARS 2014

All seminars start at 5.30. This term all seminars are held in the Large Conference Room at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU aside from the second seminar this term, which will take place at UCL and begin at 5pm.

The seminar closes at 7.30pm and retires to the bar.

 

Friday 17 October

Julian Stallabrass (The Courtauld Institute) and Dave Beech (Chelsea College of Art and Design)

‘Anti Frieze’ – An anti-celebration of Frieze week with Dave Beech and Julian Stallabrass.

Dave Beech: The Ullage of Luxury: the economics of the art fair

Julian Stallabrass: Just a Luxury Good?

Location: The Large Conference Room

 

Friday 21 November. PLEASE NOTE EARLIER START AND LOCATION

Book launch for Frances Stracey, ‘Constructed Situations: A New History of the Situationist International’ (Pluto Press)

Roundtable discussion with Briony Fer (UCL), Cadence Kinsey (UCL) and Pete Smith, followed by a drinks reception in the History of Art department at UCL.

Location and time: 5-7.30 pm at UCL – Pearson G22 Lecture Theatre.

 

Friday 28 November

Jeremy Spencer (Camberwell College of Art and Design and the Open University)

Aesthetics and Politics within Godard’s Cinema

Location: The Large Conference Room

 

Friday 12 December

Danny Hayward (Birkbeck)

Marxist Irrationality: A Cultural Prospectus and Overview

Location: The Large Conference Room

 

Organisers: Matthew Beaumont, Dave Beech, Alan Bradshaw, Warren Carter, Gail Day, Steve Edwards, Larne Abse Gogarty, Esther Leslie, David Mabb, Antigoni Memou, Chrysi Papaioannou, Nina Power, Dominic Rahtz, Pete Smith, Peter Thomas & Alberto Toscano.

For further information, please contact Larne Abse Gogarty at larne.gogarty.09@ucl.ac.uk or Chrysi Papaioannou at chrysi_p@yahoo.co.uk.
All welcome.

Marxism in Culture: www.marxisminculture.org

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/marxism-in-culture-autumn-term

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

The Game of War

Situationism

THE GAME OF WAR

Class Wargames Presents “The Game of War” @ Essex

2:00 PM, June 10th @ the Waiting Room, St Botolphs (http://st-botolphs.org)
The Street with No Name (off Queen Street) Colchester, Essex CO1 2PQ

Class Wargames (http://www.classwargames.net) will come to Essex on June 10th to present “The Game of War,” staging a participatory playing of Guy Debord’s board military-strategy board game.

Class Wargames is playing Guy Debord’s The Game of War using a replica of his original 1977 design for the board game. Guy Debord is celebrated as the chief strategist of the Situationist International and author of the searing critique of the media-saturated society of consumer capitalism: The Society of the Spectacle. What is less well known is that after the French May ’68 Revolution, Debord devoted much of the rest of his life to inventing, refining and promoting what he came to regard as his most important project: The Game of War.

The Game of War is a Clausewitz simulator: a Napoleonic era military strategy game where armies must maintain their communications structure to survive – and where victory is achieved by smashing your opponent’s supply network rather than by taking their pieces. For Debord, The Game of War wasn’t just a game – it was a guide to how people should live their lives within Fordist society. By playing this Clausewitz simulator, revolutionary activists could learn how to fight and win against the oppressors of spectacular society.

Politics is a continuation of war by other means. Wargames are a continuation of politics by other means.

Requisite Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/681989125188070

Guy Debord

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Precarious Communism

Communisation

PRECARIOUS COMMUNISM

Precarious Communism

Book Release London March 25th
Tuesday March 25th @ 5PM
New Academic Building LG01
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW

http://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=7429

https://www.facebook.com/events/219778581551552

How does one demonstrate the enduring relevance of a sacred text but to help it speak to present times? This is what churches do with the Bible and what Marxists do with the writings of Marx. Come on join us to celebrate the release of Precarious Communism, in which Richard Gilman-Opalsky detourns Marx and Engels to create a mutant manifesto for an autonomist and millennial Marxism.

Richard Gilman-Opalsky is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He is the author of Spectacular Capitalism: Guy Debord and the Practice of Radical Philosophy (2011) and Unbounded Publics: Transgressive Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory (2008).

Hosted by the Centre for Cultural Studies: http://www.gold.ac.uk/cultural-studies/

Richard will also be presenting seminars (with Stevphen Shukaitis) at:
– the Department of Politics, History and International Relations at
Loughboro University on March 26th: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/phir/research/arg/
– the Centre for Work, Organization, and Society at the University of Essex on March 28th (this will be a day long workshop)

For more information on any of these events e-mail Stevphen Shukaitis: sshuka@essex.ac.uk

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

The Society of the Spectacle

Guy Debord

THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE

THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE by Guy Debord

Newly translated and annotated by Ken Knabb
150 pages. $15.00

Guy Debord was the most influential figure in the Situationist International, the notorious group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. His book “The Society of the Spectacle,” originally published in Paris in 1967, has been translated into more than twenty other languages and is arguably the most important radical book of the twentieth century. This is the first edition in any language to include extensive annotations, clarifying the historical allusions and revealing the sources of Debord’s
“détournements.”

Contrary to popular misconceptions, Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower “philosophical” discourse nor a mere expression of “protest.” It is a carefully considered effort to clarify the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the society in which we find ourselves. This makes it more of a challenge, but it is also why it remains so pertinent nearly half a century after its original publication while countless other social theories and intellectual fads have come and gone.

It has, in fact, become even more pertinent than ever, because the spectacle has become more all-pervading than ever — to the point that it is almost universally taken for granted. Most people today have scarcely any awareness of pre-spectacle history, let alone of anti-spectacle possibilities. As Debord noted in his follow-up work, “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle” (1988), “spectacular domination has succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”

The book is now at the printer’s. It will be available March 20. For further information, see http://www.bopsecrets.org/cat.htm

Bonuses for Some

 

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski at Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

The Spectacle of Disintegration

McKenzie Wark

THE SPECTACLE OF DISINTEGRATION: SITUATIONIST PASSAGES OUT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

By McKenzie Wark

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Published May 2013

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Following his acclaimed history of the Situationist International up until the late sixties, THE BEACH BENEATH THE STREET, McKenzie Wark returns with a companion volume which puts the late work of the Situationists in a broader and deeper context, charting their contemporary relevance and their deep critique of modernity. Wark builds on their work to map the historical stages of the society of the spectacle, from the diffuse to the integrated to what he calls the disintegrating spectacle. THE SPECTACLE OF DISINTEGRATION takes the reader through the critique of political aesthetics of former Situationist T.J. Clark, the Fourierist utopia of Raoul Vaneigem, René Vienet’s earthy situationist cinema, Gianfranco Sangunetti’s pranking of the Italian ruling class, Alice-Becker Ho’s account of the anonymous language of the Romany, Guy Debord’s late films and his surprising work as a game designer.

At once an extraordinary counter history of radical praxis and a call to arms in the age of financial crisis and the resurgence of the streets, THE SPECTACLE OF DISINTEGRATION recalls the hidden journeys taken in the attempt to leave the twentieth century, and plots an exit from the twenty first.

The dustjacket unfolds to reveal a fold-out poster of the collaborative graphic essay combining text selected by McKenzie Wark with composition and drawings by Kevin C. Pyle.

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“Wark’s readable explanation of the movement’s ideas is the best I have read. ” – Edwin Heathcote, In praise of BEACH BENEATH THE STREET, FINANCIAL TIMES

“A playful, smart and occasionally epigrammatic study of the Situationists … this brilliant account is not only an essential work for our own times; it also comes with a cover that, with the minimum of manual dexterity, folds out into a collaborative graphic essay. ” – John Burnside, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

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ISBN: 9781844679577 / Hardback / $26.95 / £16.99 / $28.50CAN / 256 Pages

For more information on THE SPECTACLE OF DISINTEGRATION or to buy the book visit:

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1162-the-spectacle-of-disintegration

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**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

 

Alternatives to Capitalism: Theoretical, Practical, Visionary

1839

ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM: THEORETICAL, PRACTICAL, VISIONARY

From the U.S. Marxist Humanists 

Alternatives to Capitalism: Theoretical, Practical, Visionary

Join us for a discussion on the ongoing work of developing a philosophically grounded alternative to capitalism. It is clear that existing society has little to offer except years and even decades of austerity, reduced living standards, increasing social anxiety, and the continued enrichment of an oligarchic elite. The time has come to create new visions of an alternative that is inherent in the present and in the legacy of Karl Marx. 

Friday, July 13th 6:30pm

Corboy Law Center, Loyola University Chicago

25 East Pearson, Room 211

(1 block E of State, 1 block N of Chicago)

Chair:

Lauren Langman, Sociology, Loyola University

Speakers:

“Resistance versus Emancipation: from Foucault to Marx”

 — Kevin Anderson (USA), author of ‘Marx at the Margins:  On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies’

“The Ongoing Relevance of Marxist-Humanism”

— Sandra Rein (Canada), author of ‘Reading Dunayevskaya: Engaging the Emergence of Marxist-Humanism’

Transcending the Opposition Between the Real and the Ideal

— Marilyn Nissim-Sabat (USA), author of ‘Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking Toward a New Humanity’

“A Critique of the Situationist Dialectic in the Age of Occupy”

— David Black (Britain), author of ‘1839? The Chartist Insurrection’

“From the Economic Crisis to the Transcendence of Capital”

— Peter Hudis (USA), author of ‘Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism’

Sponsored by Loyola University, Department of Sociology

Co-Sponsored by U.S. Marxist-Humanists, http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org, an affiliate of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization

Email: arise@usmarxisthumanists.org

Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/alternatives-to-capitalism-theoretical-practical-visionary-13-july-chicago

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Registration for Situationist Ethics Conference

Situationism

REGISTRATION FOR SITUATIONIST ETHICS CONFERENCE

Registration is now open for Situationist Aesthetics: The SI, Now at the University of Sussex on Friday 8th June. 

Keynote: McKenzie Wark (The New School, NY), author of The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International (2011), Gamer Theory (2006) and Hacker Manifesto (2004).

The programme and registration information are available at http://www.situationist-aesthetics.blogspot.co.uk/

—

Is it oxymoronic, heretical or just plain wrong to talk about Situationist aesthetics? The Situationist International (SI) condemned attempts to discuss its work in terms of aesthetics, but perhaps it is now time to brush the SI against the grain.

When it first announced its programme, the SI insisted that ‘There is no such thing as Situationism’. A few years later, before expelling its members deemed to be too invested in artistic production, the SI declared that in an age of spectacle any work of art produced by a Situationist must necessarily be ‘antisituationist’. The SI’s tactical intransigence regarding the political value of the aesthetic, and its refusal of the possibility of a specifically Situationist aesthetic, threw up problems that remained unresolved by the time of the SI’s dissolution. Since 1972, particularly in Anglophone contexts, Situationist practices have penetrated an array of cultural spheres, and much cultural production which the SI would have dismissed as spectacular has claimed some Situationist influence.

The SI located itself within but against culture. This symposium asks whether such a position is tenable, and what possibility might there be for Situationist aesthetics after all. Do cultural phenomena such as punk, or the current psychogeography industry, for example, work as or against Situationist aesthetics? Is it possible to identify art works and/or practices indebted to the SI that do not recuperate its politics but fortify and develop them?

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Subjectivity – Volume 5 Issue 1 (April 2012)

Critique

SUBJECTIVITY – VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1 (April 2012)

Special Issue: Collective Becomings
Edited by Stevphen Shukaitis & Joanna Figiel
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/sub/journal/v5/n1/index.html

Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi is a contemporary writer, autonomist theorist and media activist. He founded the magazine A/traverso (1975-1981), and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first pirate radio station in Italy (1976-1978). His work analyzes the role of media and information technology in post-industrial capitalism, in particular drawing from schizoanalysis and aesthetics to investigate processes of subjectification within precarious labor.

This issue of Subjectivity, which is the first major engagement with Bifo’s work in English, focuses on the themes of collective becomings, whether manifest in the eruption of new political movements, within the workings of the economy, or in the artistic sphere. It is not just a collection of essays that take Bifo’s ideas as their starting point, but rather a collection of essays that all start from the conjuncture of Bifo’s ideas, the issues and conditions raised by them, with forms of collective becomings in the present.

The purpose then is not to consider Bifo’s work in isolation, but rather to develop it as a tool, one that is explored through continued usage and application. This conjunctive approach is the most productive and valuable feature of Bifo’s writing, and autonomist analysis more generally: its ability to act as a kind of crossroads for bringing together different forms of political analysis and social theory, to act as a bridge between them.

Issue Contents:

Introduction
Stevphen Shukaitis & Joanna Figiel

Angels of love in the unhappiness factory
Dave Eden

Labor of recombination
Abe Walker

Creative labor in Shanghai: Questions on politics, composition and ambivalence
Anja Kanngieser

Cinematic and aesthetic cartographies of subjective mutation
Michael Goddard

The Novel Form in Italian Postmodernity: Genna’s Day of Judgment
Giuseppina Mecchia

Reassessing recomposition: 40 years after the publication of Anti-Oedipus
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi

— 
Stevphen Shukaitis
Autonomedia Editorial Collective
http://www.autonomedia.org
http://www.minorcompositions.info

“Autonomy is not a fixed, essential state. Like gender, autonomy is created through its performance, by doing/becoming; it is a political practice. To become autonomous is to refuse authoritarian and compulsory cultures of separation and hierarchy through embodied practices of welcoming difference… Becoming autonomous is a political position for it thwarts the exclusions of proprietary knowledge and jealous hoarding of resources, and replaces the social and economic hierarchies on which these depend with a politics of skill exchange, welcome, and collaboration. Freely sharing these with others creates a common wealth of knowledge and power that subverts the domination and hegemony of the master’s rule.” – subRosa Collective

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Guy Debord Exhibition & Conference

Situationism

GUY DEBORD EXHIBITION & CONFERENCE AT THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE

The conference will be held during the Guy Debord exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) in Spring 2013.

PRESENTATION

In 2009, the archives of Guy Debord became a “national treasure”; a year later, they entered the collections of BnF’s manuscripts department. This has given researchers access to the sources of Guy Debord’s work as well as to many other documents from the Situationist movement. These extensive archives confirm a now well-established story, but they also give us new insights into texts, events, relationships, and gather numerous contextual elements from the period. They’re precious for what they reveal about Guy Debord’s intentions and circumstances. They show Guy Debord to be the author, protagonist and key witness of a story that he so often masterminded.

This conference invites researchers to take full advantage of the archives. We are encouraging researchers to use the new evidence to question every assumption and interpretation. Papers based on other sources than the Guy Debord Archives are also welcome.

CONTENT

This two-day conference will explore the four issues below. The questions and sources mentioned here are mere propositions. Participants are free to propose others, in accordance with the four main issues of the conference.

The author
This first part of the conference will examine the material and the making of Guy Debord’s writings. It will mostly present archive-based research that explores the author’s reading practices, his personal library or his intellectual education, as well as the genesis of his writing, the sources and workings of détournement, the author’s stylistic and rhetoric armoury, the wide range of literary genres he practiced, or the various strategies he invented to write the self and the world.

Available sources in the archive: various states of the texts, preliminary documents for the cinema, reading notes, library (as in 1994)

The material of the action
In this second part of the conference, we will further consider the means and ends of Guy Debord’s revolutionary project: how did Guy Debord practically promote the Situationist theory and praxis, supersede the arts, realize philosophy, fight against the spectacle, and occupy his positions within various fields (arts, Marxism, radical politics, etc.)? The main focus will be the action as considered through its documentation. We would like to study the material conditions of Guy Debord’s revolution of everyday life, his strategies to articulate theory and practice, along with the means and various consequences of their diffusion.

Available sources in the archive: Press gathered by Guy Debord all along his life, documentation on the International Situationist’s publications and organisation, documents on the publishing activities, correspondence.

Guy Debord and the others
The Situationist adventure was a collective one. This third part of the conference will examine Debord’s relations with his friends, enemies, or partners in revolution. The role of specific individuals or groups in Guy Debord’s life and projects shall here be developed – for instance: Joseph G. Wolman, Pinot Gallizio, Asger Jorn, Henri Lefebvre, Alexander Trocchi, Socialisme ou Barbarie, Jacqueline de Jong, SPUR, the Nashists of the Second S.I., Raoul Vaneigem, I.C.O., anarchists in France and abroad, Gérard Lebovici, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, etc.

Available sources in the archive: correspondence, received documentation, other archives.

Guy Debord and Us
The Situationist posterities and Guy Debord’s heritage are vast and perilous issues. We would like them to be addressed with the use of archival sources, field work, or interviews. The idea of this fourth part of the conference will be to determine how the Situationist and Debordian heritage has been travelling, passed on, recuperated or “détourné”, in many different fields, including of course the arts, literature, political theory or activism, etc. The current accuracy of Guy Debord’s thought shall also be examined, as well as the different aspects of its possible or impossible posterity in the contemporary world.

Available sources in the archive: Press gathered by Guy Debord, received documentation, correspondence, other archives, interview, field work.

Format: 20 minutes

Deadline for submissions: May, 15th 2012

All researchers, from every discipline or institution (as well as independent researchers) can submit a paper to this conference. Proposals shouldn’t exceed 500 words, and should be sent, along with a short presentation (or c.v.) to the following email addresses: laurence.le-bras@bnf.fr and emmanuel.guy@bnf.fr by May 15th, 2012.

These addresses should also be used for further questions on the archives or the conference.
The online inventory (in process) is available through the BnF manuscripts online catalogue at the following address: http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ead.html?id=FRBNFEAD000057433&c=FRBNFEAD000057433_e0000015&qid=sdx_q18

Host institution :
Bibliothèque nationale de France
http://www.bnf.fr

Organisation :
Laurence Le Bras and Emmanuel Guy
Curators of the Guy Debord exhibition
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Département des Manuscrits
5 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski