Chapter Þ
1. We will live- leaping and striking in the poetry of the hit and the blackjack.
2. We will die- with our cries ringing in our throats and our hands clenched tight to our voices.
3. We dismiss, condemn, castigate, criticize, censure, chastise, and revile all who sleep like devils sick of sin and deny the truth.
4. We deny meaning and the past, for the past has died and is uninteresting and meaning can only justify the Inflictors.
7. We embrace the past with its kingdoms of endless ghosts for the past is the lovelY graveyard of everything, bOUnded on one end by Infinity and on the otheR by Eternity.
11. In a world that is
really upside down, the true is a moment of the false
-13. we sing of vioLence and struggle and audacity and a revOlt against the rebellion against the reVolution against the uprising against the insurrEction against the insuRgency which iS reborn again each generation
√691. we affirm the victory of aLl utilitarian cowardIce, of brotherhood (place ourSelves as eternal foes of all ideologies That numb the pain of the rEal and aNesthetize the pleasure of the new human) and moralism And utopianism
and societism and-
Report on the Construction of Situations, 1960
What is The Situation?
The Situation is the opposite of The Spectacle.
What is The Spectacle?
The Spectacle is reality commodified. It is the transformation of direct experience and authentic desire into the consumption of goods and services so as to receive “first hand sensation” by way of second hand products. It is the Alienation of the Self in the name of profit and power. It is the replacement of a genuine and fulfilling life with a life of toil, removed from the fruit of your labor by two degrees, desperately seeking gratification through movies, books, magazines, music, religion, ideology, nationalism, propaganda, legal substances, illegal substances, possessions, and the things that they tell you
should make you happy but do not.
The Situation is art, constructed so as to interrupt and disrupt the drudgery with a sense of wonder, adventure, and feeling. It inspires the awakening and subsequent pursuit of legitimate desire. In a world where human beings have been reduced to little more than cogs in vast machines, alienating them from themselves, The Situation regards all humans as genuine, unique creatures, who merit celebration and respect in and of themselves.
The Situation celebrates YOU, the person reading this, in all of your beautiful imperfections.
The purpose of life, argue the Situationists, is to have fun.
Situationism is the sort of ideology that if it hadn’t existed, someone would have felt obliged to invent it. It emerged as the natural result of a world that industrialized earlier and to an even more extreme degree, with destructive global wars and the mass-mobilization of populations for labor, soldiering, and service to the state. It was a reaction to Societism, the Rex, and even Fascism that sought to crush the diversity and individuality of cultural expression into a single amalgamated mono-cultural society. It arose in response to the frantic advance of technological progress and massive growth of the economy, which occurred without seeming to benefit the lives of ordinary people. What’s the point? The Situationists asked. Why advance technology and increase production if people still have to spend their lives stressed and scraping by in the rat race? They accused the modern world of “commodifying” meaning and “trivializing” once-revolutionary ideas and ideologies in a “rigged game” so as to admit them into society only once they were incapable of actually changing anything. They wanted to create a new human called “Homo Ludens”- “the Playful Man”- dedicated to actually enjoying life.
The Situationists claimed that modern civilization had transformed "the work concept" into the purpose of life for most people. It wanted to use the massive industry and advanced technology that the Seperate-verse had created to introduce a world where work was not essentially mandatory for everyone.
While its earliest forebearers existed within the
avante garde artistic scene in the United States and France, the movement began in America during the Mad Years of the 1950s, when new ideologies were circulating through the common zeitgeist and people were disillusioned in the aftermath of the Great Wars. In 1960 it crystalized with the publication of the “
Report on the Construction of Situations” that provided Situationism with a (semi) coherent manifesto calling for the reinvention and transformation of society. The author of the Report used the pseudonym “THE CRITIC” and the first meeting of the Situationist International in Metropolis-Mexico elected THE CRITIC leader of their movement, with a Ms. Vanessa Soldado standing in as The Critic and beginning the tradition of American Situationist chapters ceremonially being led by women and men who would use The Critic’s title during meetings and events. The new ideology spread first through America’s universities and then began to make its way into the general population.
Members organized performance art “Situations” that brough fame and media attention to the movement. In New York the Situationist Vilas Strike dressed up as Santa Claus (TTLs version who looks a little different) and together with his confederates passed out toys from a major department store to children on the street (the police eventually made the children give them back). In New Orleans Aurora Mercer stood nude in a public place, painting herself with different colors and inviting passerby to paint her as well. When the police arrived she removed a rolled-up piece of paper from inside herself and began reading a statement from it about how we perceive race and sex. The San Francisco chapter of the Situationist International raised close to a quarter of a million dollars that they spent buying beautiful antique art painted over in a public park with spray-painted with corporate logos, obscene symbols, and combinations of the two. They then handed the new art out to passersby. In Chicago the Situationists planted “bombs” that used the casings of bombs from the recent war, but contained nothing except for compressed air that caused confetti and glitter to spray out when they went off. The movement organized what we would call flash mobs- groups of people would appear to be going about their day when they would all suddenly freeze in place, or start dancing, or playing music, or stripping, or acting out fights- before turning and vanishing back into the crowd. They were condemned as “vandals” and “terrorists”, and a “threat to public order”, but most Situationist art was less extreme.
I'm not creative enough to invent this stuff completely
on my own. I recommend against googling the words "Interior Scroll" on a work computer.
“The World Stage” organized flash theatre across North America, with actors abruptly putting on skits in public. Said skits could be surreal and occasionally disturbing, but they respected public decency laws and even co-operated with local authorities to make sure that they could perform uninterrupted. Situationist graffiti art blossomed, and while it was far from universal, most Situationists followed the example of famed graffitist Khalid Hachim who restricted his art to public property (which he felt anyone had a right to paint on) and corporate property (because screw them), while avoiding defacing private homes or small businesses.
“Conventional” Situationist art spread in popularity, and where the art spread the political ideology followed.
They marched, they protested, they handed out pamphlets, they organized strikes, they formed self-governing communes, they called for revolution, but this was America in the Mad Years and the Situationist International was never an actual threat to the government. For all of its flaws the United States was a free country that allowed its citizens outlets for self-expression, and this meant that Situationism there remained a movement of artists, intellectuals, dreamers, and student radicals. It wasn’t until you looked at the SI chapters outside of the United States that you found the Situationists for whom the art was only a symbol of the politics, and their talk of revolution was deadly serious.
Situationist grafitti in the United States mocking societal expectations
Inevitably Situationism’s first stop in Europe was France, where the Rex government of the Fourth French Republic declared its art to be decadent and illegal, and the Situations that the French Chapter of the SI organized were considerably less… lighthearted and more revolutionary as a result. It flourished more in Germany and the Pan-European Pact, where people disillusioned with the cultural traditionalism of the Rex embraced a variant of Situationism that could be quite poignant when it wasn’t political. But the Rex was genuinely popular in France, and while plenty of Pan-Europeans were drawn to Situationist political proposals for a decentralized government dedicated to making the lives of its citizens happy ones, the ever-present threat of Societism on their borders meant that Situationism was perceived more as an ideal than an achievable goal.
A poster from French Situationism.
It would be in Britain and China where the forces of the Situationist International attained the strength to make the reinvention of society and the creation of Homo Ludens a real possibility.
Britain- as we discussed in the previous chapter- was going through a period of crisis. It had suffered during the Great Wars only to gain nothing from them, and High Chancellor Lancelot Susan had broken from his only significant ally when the Drakian Empire tried to replace him with someone more compliant. English Societism was attempting- with extremely mixed success- to manage its economy using the FATE computer system (essentially a British version of Cybersyn), while pushing for the use of a simplified version of English dubbed “Newspeak” for complex ideological and pseudoscientific reasons. The British public that had legitimately voted the party into power in 1931 no longer believed in its promises or supported its leader. The Silent Revolutions in continental Europe inspired Britons with the ease by which they brought down authoritarian governments, and anyone with an illegal radio could pick up the private transmitter in Dublin owned by King Edward VII (still living in the Bahamas) that broadcast uncensored news and recorded addresses by the aged king urging the people of England, Scotland, and Wales to rise up restore him to the throne. There
was an underground Royalist opposition, but too many ordinary men and women in the White Island associated the monarchy with the upper classes and Societism for it to gain a true mass following. There was a Socialist underground as well as a Royalist one, a larger British Republican Army advocating a fascist democracy, and even small Geoist, Utopian, Red, and Rex factions. In the years of the late 50s and early 60s you would have had to hunt to find any sign that the British Chapter of the Situationist International even existed beyond some Situationist-inspired graffiti. It had a handful of followers in a few small cells, lacking any kind of formal program or centralized leadership. It claimed no noteworthy Situations and played at best a minor role in the British underground.
Or at least, that was the case until King Mob Echo entered the scene.
Early Situationist graffiti in Britain. Just ignore the fact that so many of these photographs are black and white even though TTL has had color for a while.
Despite its traditional association with public disorder, the Susan government had turned Bonfire Night into a major propaganda tool for the regime. Mass Societist rallies were held in every town and city, in addition to the traditional Guy Fawkes figures hostile foreign leaders and escaped British dissidents (including the king) were burned in effigy, and public executions of enemies of the state were held on the day of November 5. The government used the holiday to tie itself to traditional British authority and historic British customs, drawing parallels between the regime and British governments of the past. The holiday’s theme was one of Britain perpetually under siege by dangerous subversive forces represented historically by wicked terrorists such as Fawkes, and in the modern day by whoever Lancelot Susan’s current enemies were. There were fireworks displays, relaxation of ration rules, special broadcasts of new movies and patriotic “documentaries” of British history, and time off work. One such “documentary” that aired in 1962 covered the
Gordon Riots of 1780 when rioters stormed the Newgate prison and broke out the prisoners, daubing the words “Freed by His Majesty King Mob” above the now empty cells. Said documentary drew parallels with the reign of terror during the French revolution (implying that Britain only narrowly escaped a similar fate via strong and authoritarian leadership) and the slogan was still familiar to the British public in 1965.
On the night of November 4, 1965, a masked man burned down the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales in London using fireworks that could be seen across the city skyline.
Fireworks rise over the exploding Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, 1965.
There are a dozen different stories about the true identity of who King Mob Echo actually was- he has been described as everything from an escapee from a top secret British supersoldier program to the true heir of James II and VII- but in this case it’s likely that the official story (for once) is the most accurate. According to the British state the man who burned down the Old Bailey (as it was more popularly known) was a manager in a delivery service named Thomas Nailer. While the regime attributed various (probably spurious) motivations to Nailer, they also described him as a Situationist who -unable to acquire normal explosives- decided to take advantage of the large number of state-sanctioned fireworks that he was hired to deliver in preparation for Bonfire night. According to investigators he originally intended to target the Palace of Westminster but was foiled by the (suitably heroic) efforts of government security, and so instead arranged for the delivery of a large number of fireworks to the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales originally intended for locations around greater London, including in several of the boxes detonators set to go off at midnight on the 4th of November. Nailer chose to be present to witness the colorful explosion with his face hidden by a government-issue gas mask (all citizens had one to protect themselves from chemical and biological attacks such as those during the Great Patriotic War) and signed his “artwork” by spray-painting the words “King Mob Echo” on the burning ruins of the Old Bailey. The regime chose to publicize the incident as an example of the kind of evil terrorism that they were fighting against, and produced a manifesto (almost certainly invented) that it claimed was from the bomber, as well as a picture of the masked man and a picture of his similarly masked corpse.
This proved a mistake.
The famous image of King Mob Echo going to attack the Old Bailey.
The Situationist International promptly hailed “the first great Situation of the British Chapter” (although the absence of any evidence that Nailer ever belonged to the SI suggests that he was probably just a lone wolf inspired by the Siutationist ideology- if indeed he even had Situationist connections at all) and “
KING MOB ECHO” was recognized as the leader of Situationism in the United Kingdom just as “THE CRITIC” was recognized as the leader of Situationism in the United States. The movement in Britain rejected claims by the British government that King Mob Echo was dead, insisting that he lived on. They may have meant this in a poetic/artistic sense, but two weeks later an unknown person wearing the same model of government-issue gas mask shown in the pictures released from the November 4th Bombing hijacked the
signal of the British Broadcasting Service for about ninety seconds during which he claimed to be King Mob Echo, insisted that reports of his death were fake, hummed music, called for revolution, and exposed his buttocks which a similarly unknown woman spanked with a flyswatter.
The regime claimed to have captured the member of the insidious Situationist conspiracy behind the hijacking who- they insisted- falsely claimed to be King Mob Echo, but Britain had experienced its second Situation, and now there was no question that the “King” would live on.
Suddenly the formerly peripheral UK branch of Situationism was thrust into the position of leading the British Underground. Britons who had been looking to oppose the government gravitated towards them, staging their own Situations and engaging in acts of resistance. Of course, the British Chapter of the SI barely existed, which meant that for the most part the new British Situationists were merely like-minded men and women using Situationist slogans, symbols, and ideas while acting and organizing independently- which made them almost impossible to stamp out. Somehow the number two became a Situationist symbol in the United Kingdom, and it proliferated until it was everywhere. Two scratches or chalk-marks on a wall, a fork and a knife, two fingers held up on one hand, two buttons left unbuttoned in the middle of your coat, two rocks one on top of the other, it became impossible for the state to police or prevent. Unrest built and intensified, resistance and terrorist acts- of Situationist inspiration at the very least- proliferated. King Mob Echo was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, any Briton with a gas mask could claim to be him, and no matter how much the High Chancellor insisted that he was dead it seemed like Susan was constantly proven wrong.
This one should be self-explanatory
November 4, 1966 was quiet.
So was November 5th.
November 6th, 1966 was the day that the London Metropolitan Police to fired on masked rebels and the revolution began.
All across the island of Great Britain the people rose for the greatest Situation of them all, fighting to create the utopian “land of do as you please”. The rebels fought hard…
1
…and, uh, that’s worse than I expected. Whew.
Meanwhile Lancelot Susan clung to power tenaciously…
18
…and so much for the slim chance of them both fumbling.
The Situationist revolution proved disorganized and anarchic, unable to present a united front with the rest of the British Underground, and badly outgunned by government troops. Attempts by the Irish to assist them by smuggling arms and advisors across the Irish Sea failed, and despite some initial defections the British military and security forces largely remained loyal to the regime. What the rebels
did accomplish was to badly weaken Susan’s dictatorship, demonstrating the degree to which the populace was now hostile towards their High Chancellor, and inadvertently forcing rapprochement between London and Aurica. Noting the Albionian chaos the Polemarch turned his attention from the Space Race to propose dispatching a small intervention force to Great Britain during the fighting. Had the uprising been a bit worse Susan might have had no choice but to accept Drakian troops on British soil, and a
de facto end to his country’s sovereignty. As it was, he managed to politely decline, grudgingly agreeing to join the Pact of Blood but preserving Great Britain as the only other truly independent member of the Societist alliance.
But we were talking about how there were
two countries where Situationism had the opportunity to flourish.
The site won't let me upload any more pictures, so the second half of this chapter will go up later as a separate post. Thank you for your patience.