| Situationist International |  |
Guy Debord was a founding member of the Situationist International, a political and artistic movement whose ideas are articulated in The Society of the Spectacle and whose influence is still felt, despite the fact that it dissolved shortly after it formed and was blighted with infighting and instability. It has philosophical parallels with various movements, surviving and extinct, including Marxism, dada, punk, anarchism, and anti-consumerism. Known also as SI, Situationist International originated in 1957 when a group of disparate artistic movements merged. These included Lettrist International, Fluxus, and the London Psychogeographical Society. Some of SI's more influential members, besides the coltishly well-known Debord, included Asger Jorn, an artist and professional vandal, Michele Bernstein, a French author, and Raoul Vaneigem, who became one of Debord's own rivals. Among the SI's tenets was the belief that all art should be revolutionary, and they espoused in particular the idea of the "realization and suppression of art." This referred to the belief that art is not separate from everyday life - indeed, art is what makes up everyday life, so there should be no special niche for it and it should not be detached from the daily business of the city. The "suppression"of art meant the suppression of the idea that "art" is a discreet entity. The SI took a radical approach to art activism: they sought to dismantle the status quo and rebuild a society in which art was properly "realized" and "suppressed." A dramatic and high-profile enactment of these ideas played out during the May 1968 uprising.
The events of May 1968 - also known as the Strasbourg scandal but most commonly referred to, by today's activists and historians, simply as "May '68" - began when a group of students associated with SI published a pamphlet called On the Poverty of Student Life. It was published using public funds, and helped to raise the profile of Situationist ideas as well as to incite activism throughout Paris. Occupations took place throughout Paris universities, beginning with Nanterre and spreading to the Sorbonne, and riots broke out between protesters and police. The Situationists participated in the occupations and called for more widespread occupations of factories and workplaces, and even formed the Council for the Maintenance of The Occupations. Ultimately, a general strike was held throughout Paris, and close to ten million workers took part. Workers refused to cooperate with authorities (who desperately offered concessions), and a widespread, Situationist-inspired revolutionary chaos ensued until President de Gaulle threatened civil war and sent the army into the streets. May 1968 was, then, a triumph of Situationist ideas and of the concept that everyday life can be the site of revolution and living art: the streets of Paris were transformed into a battleground, the political horizon sat at street level, and the commonplace, ordinary workers and students who filled out the populace were the soldiers and heroes of the day. The events of Paris in 1968 are of a particularly high caliber of drama and effect, but the philosophies and motives that underlay it are evident in some of the works and efforts of the artists who make up SI's legacy today.
