A screening of a film by Guy Debord [1997]

Take-home quotes/ reproduction of non-copyrighted black and red press version of Society of the Spectacle/ overview of space with wall paper of photocopies

As a part of a series of lectures and presentations entitled The Mediated Image*, Society of the Spectacle, was screened on April 12 1997.

The film, which is perhaps often quoted and rarely seen, charts some of the basic elements still crucial to media criticism today. Made in 1973, five years after the book bearing the same name, Society of the Spectacle is a ninety-minute barrage of visual theory. After a brief introduction, it was projected by video beam in an environment that had been designed to reiterate certain central themes in the film. During the break people were free to walk around and look at images and texts taken from both the book and script. There were also small "take-home" quotes from this Situationist manifesto available for the grabbing. Finally a limited photocopy edition was made of the non-copyrighted Black and Red Press publication of Society of the Spectacle. As Zone books had just published their copyrighted version, we felt it was important to celebrate the Black and Red Press release.

*The Mediated Image was a series of lectures and presentations programmed by De Geuzen looking at how images are constructed, interpreted, manipulated and received.  Besides examining how images are made and displayed, the series explored key figures who have shaped contemporary media discourse, such as Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, Marshall McLuhan and Michel de Certeau.

The following site contains information on the Situationists and Guy Debord.  You can also printout Society of the Spectacle.

Keeping with the Situationist ethic of reverie the Dance Liberation Front is a New York based group with a mission to reclaim the streets and dance.

Take home quotes

Everything that was directly lived has moved into a representation.
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1973

Plagiarism is necessary.  Progress implies it.  It hugs an author’s phrase, makes use of his expression, erases a false idea, and replaces it with a correct one.
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1973

Détournement is the fluid language of the anti-ideology.
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1973

The spectacle is the nightmare of enchained modern society which ultimately only expresses its desire to sleep.  The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1973

Therefore, since I cannot be the lover who could seduce these glib-tongued times, I am determined to be instead the wicked spoilsport of these frivolous days.
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, 1973