Showing posts sorted by relevance for query GUY DEBORD. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query GUY DEBORD. Sort by date Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2021
Sunday, January 19, 2020
A Genealogy and Critique of Guy Debord's Theory of Spectacle - PhD Thesis
Cover of the 1983 edition of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle
PhD Thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011
Tom Bunyard
This thesis addresses Guy Debord's theory of spectacle through its primary philosophical and theoretical influences. Through doing so it highlights the importance of his largely overlooked concerns with time and history, and interprets the theory on that basis. The theory of spectacle is shown to be not simply a critique of the mass media, as is often assumed, but rather an account of a relationship with history; or more specifically, an alienated relation to the construction of history. This approach thus offers a means of addressing Debord’s Hegelian Marxism. The thesis connects the latter to Debord’s interests in strategy, chance and play by way of its existential elements, and uses these themes to investigate his own and the Situationist International’s (S.I.) concerns with praxis, political action and organisation.
Addressing Debord and the S.I.’s work in this way also highlights the shortcomings of the theory of spectacle. The theory is based upon the separation of an acting subject from his or her own actions, and in viewing capitalist society under this rubric it tends towards replacing Marx's presentation of capital as an antagonistic social relation with an abstract opposition between an alienated consciousness and a homogenised world. Yet whilst the theory itself may be problematic, the conceptions of time, history and subjectivity that inform it may be of greater interest. Drawing attention to Debord's claims that theories should be understood as strategic interventions, and also to the S.I.'s calls for their own supersession, the thesis uses its observations on the nature of Debord's Hegelian Marxism to cast the theory of spectacle as a particular moment within a broader notion of historical agency. It thus contends that Debord's work can be seen to imply a model of collective political will, and offers initial suggestions as to how that interpretation might be developed.
Publication Name: PhD Thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011
Three Situationists walk into a bar - Or, the peculiar case of the Hamburg Theses
Anthony Hayes
Guy Debord, filmmaker, Situationist and author of The Society of the Spectacle, called The Hamburg Theses ‘the most mysterious of all the documents that emanated from the Situationist International.’ What makes the Hamburg Theses most enigmatic, apart from the fleeting and elusive references made to them in the Situationist journal, is that they were never published — left to fade along with the memories of their ‘co-authors’. Nonetheless their significance to the group was paramount. The Theses were formulated in response to the crisis regarding the role of art and artistic practice within the group. In essence their apparent failure to appear was intended to reflect the Situationist project itself: the rejection of the fetish of objects and other forms of reified human activity beloved of capitalism. In the Hamburg Theses, then, we have the Situationist project expressed in its most concise and impossibly elusive form, making it one of the most vital works of the Situationist International.
Cover of the 1983 edition of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle
PhD Thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011
Tom Bunyard
This thesis addresses Guy Debord's theory of spectacle through its primary philosophical and theoretical influences. Through doing so it highlights the importance of his largely overlooked concerns with time and history, and interprets the theory on that basis. The theory of spectacle is shown to be not simply a critique of the mass media, as is often assumed, but rather an account of a relationship with history; or more specifically, an alienated relation to the construction of history. This approach thus offers a means of addressing Debord’s Hegelian Marxism. The thesis connects the latter to Debord’s interests in strategy, chance and play by way of its existential elements, and uses these themes to investigate his own and the Situationist International’s (S.I.) concerns with praxis, political action and organisation.
Addressing Debord and the S.I.’s work in this way also highlights the shortcomings of the theory of spectacle. The theory is based upon the separation of an acting subject from his or her own actions, and in viewing capitalist society under this rubric it tends towards replacing Marx's presentation of capital as an antagonistic social relation with an abstract opposition between an alienated consciousness and a homogenised world. Yet whilst the theory itself may be problematic, the conceptions of time, history and subjectivity that inform it may be of greater interest. Drawing attention to Debord's claims that theories should be understood as strategic interventions, and also to the S.I.'s calls for their own supersession, the thesis uses its observations on the nature of Debord's Hegelian Marxism to cast the theory of spectacle as a particular moment within a broader notion of historical agency. It thus contends that Debord's work can be seen to imply a model of collective political will, and offers initial suggestions as to how that interpretation might be developed.
Publication Name: PhD Thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011
Three Situationists walk into a bar - Or, the peculiar case of the Hamburg Theses
Anthony Hayes
Guy Debord, filmmaker, Situationist and author of The Society of the Spectacle, called The Hamburg Theses ‘the most mysterious of all the documents that emanated from the Situationist International.’ What makes the Hamburg Theses most enigmatic, apart from the fleeting and elusive references made to them in the Situationist journal, is that they were never published — left to fade along with the memories of their ‘co-authors’. Nonetheless their significance to the group was paramount. The Theses were formulated in response to the crisis regarding the role of art and artistic practice within the group. In essence their apparent failure to appear was intended to reflect the Situationist project itself: the rejection of the fetish of objects and other forms of reified human activity beloved of capitalism. In the Hamburg Theses, then, we have the Situationist project expressed in its most concise and impossibly elusive form, making it one of the most vital works of the Situationist International.
Art, ideology, and everyday space: subversive tendencies from Dada to situationism
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Changing our mobility, designing our future
IMAGE: ASST. PROF. BARIŞ YILDIZ, KOÇ UNIVERSITY, ISTANBUL, 2022. view more
CREDIT: KOÇ UNIVERSITY
Our ways of coming together and transporting goods and services are changing drastically with huge implications for cities, their residents, and the environment day by day. But even so, the current city logistics (CL) paradigm does not consider the mobility of goods a social need but a business problem. Current trends therefore limit our capacity to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities brought by this profound change.
Asst. Prof. Barış Yıldız from Koç University Department of Industrial Engineering recently received a Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC) for his project tackling the issue with a new perspective. It is the first ERC project focused on logistics.
“GoodMobility: A New Perspective on City Logistics: Concepts, Theory, and Models for Designing and Managing Logistics as a Service” proposes to replace techno-business-centric smart thinking with network-centric wise logistics. While designing the future of urban logistics, the project will consider public value as its priority and follow three main objectives.
Firstly, the public value will be constructed as a measurement system to assess and guide CL planning and management. Principles, models, and tools for logistics as a service (LaaS) infrastructure design will be developed as a second step. The third objective will be to develop a theoretical framework and models for the operating procedures of LaaS, introducing the logistics markets to ensure efficiency and reliability and secure public value in matching logistics demand and supply.
GoodMobility envisions laying the foundations of a new theory of CL with significant scientific and practical implications. It aims to realize new transportation technologies and business models that have not been considered before, in a way that will maximize social benefit, with public-private partnerships. The project aims to deliver products and services that will increase the innovation capacity and quality of life of cities to the residents in a much faster, more economical, and environmentally friendly manner. The novel ideas, concepts, and methodologies will open new research perspectives in transport and logistics with far-reaching social, economic, and environmental consequences.
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