for 2.23.16

we will be ending our month of readings of the sits by watching an hour of the debord film, can dialectics break bricks, an example of the kind of situation that the sits thought might have a chance of giving people room to think differently.

there will probably be more discussion after the film about art, other kinds of situations and interventions, perhaps some about the non-french situationists, and so on.

Four weeks on the Situationist Internationale

Week 1 – Cities: January 26th
Unitary Urbanism
Formulary for a New Urbanism
Another City for Another Life

some preparatory questions:

these readings are pro-urban, with a lot of passionate thinking about how cities constrain and also liberate people (or at least have a lot of power to liberate people, if some major things changed). here on the west coast, that is a fairly unusual take these days. mostly people talk about cities being bad places, to raise children, to get away from capitalism and/or the state (ha), to have better kinds of relationships, etc.

what does it look like to take a modern positive view of urban life? how do we think cities could change to be liberatory spaces? what impact would flexible and mobile housing have on cityscapes and our imaginations?
Week 2 – activism: February 2nd
Scandal
On the Poverty
Critique of the new left
Week 3 – spectacular reality: February 9th
Bad Days
Basic Banalities
All the Kings Men
Week 4 – desire: February 16th
New Forms
Perspectives for Conscious Changes in Everyday Life
Instructions for an Insurrection
Response to a Questionnaire from the Center for Socio-Experimental Art

All readings are from the SI anthology