Over fifty years after the Situationist International appeared, its legacy continues to inspire activists, artists and theorists around the world. Such a legend has accrued to this movement that the story of the SI now demands to be told in a contemporary voice capable of putting it into the context of twenty-first-century struggles.
Mc Kenzie Wark delves into the Situationists’ unacknowledged diversity, revealing a world as rich in practice as it is in theory. Tracing the group’s development from the bohemian Paris of the ’50s to the explosive days of May ’68, Wark’s take on the Situationists is biographically and historically rich, presenting the group as an ensemble creation, rather than the brainchild and dominion of its most famous member, Guy Debord. Roaming through Europe and the lives of those who made up the movement-including Constant, Asger Jorn, Mich�le Bernstein, Alex Trocchi and Jacqueline De Jong-Wark uncovers an international movement riven with conflicting passions.
Accessible to those who have only just discovered the Situationists and filled with new insights,
The Beach Beneath the Street rereads the group’s history in the light of our contemporary experience of communications, architecture, and everyday life. The Situationists tried to escape the world of twentieth-century spectacle and failed in the attempt. Wark argues that they may still help us to escape the twenty-first century, while we still can.
About the author
Mc Kenzie Wark is best known for a series of books of twenty-first century critical theory, including A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, and Capital is Dead. She has also written works that contribute to an alternate history of Marxism, including Leaving the Twentieth Century and Molecular Red. Her survey books on contemporary theory and problems in collaborative knowledge production are General Intellects and Sensoria. She also writes in an autotheoretical style in books such as Dispositions, Philosophy for Spiders, Raving and Love and Money, Sex and Death. She is a professor of media and cultural studies at a university in New York.
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