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Society
of the Spectacle
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Guy
Debord, France, 1972, 65 min.
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| Public
Event: Weds, Feb 11, 2004, 4PM, CFA 112, U @ Buffalo North Campus |
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Keith
Sanborn*, media
artist, theorist and curator,
presents his translations of Guy Debord's films Society of the
Spectacle (1972) and Refutation of all judgments, whether
for or against, that have been brought to date on the film The
Society of the Spectacle (1975).
Society of the Spectacle presents the main insights in the form
of a film of Debord's own book by the same name written in 1967.
Even more than it is a film, it is an intervention: a conscious
attempt to change the world.
Refutation... is a short response in the form of a film to the
critical reception of Society of the Spectacle.
This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the
McNulty Chair, the Melodia E. Jones Chair, Wednesdays @ 4 series,
and the Department of Media Study.
*For more on Sanborn, scroll down. |
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| 35:
In the spectacle’s basic practice of incorporating into itself
all the fluid aspects of human activity so as to possess them in
a congealed form, and of inverting living values into purely abstract
values, we recognize our old enemy the commodity, which seems at
first glance so trivial and obvious, yet which is actually so complex
and full of metaphysical subtleties. |
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36: The fetishism of the commodity — the domination of society
by “intangible as well as tangible things” — attains
its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world
is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it,
yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded
as the epitome of reality. |
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| 37:
The world at once present and absent that the spectacle holds up
to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience.
The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because
its development is identical to people’s estrangement from
each other and from everything they produce. |
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| Keith
Sanborn also presents to the B & C Cinema class: |
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"The
Zapruder footage: an investigation of consensual hallucination"
(directed by Keith Sanborn, 1999, 20 min.)
Synopsis: Various permutations and combinations of the Zapruder
footage of the assassination of JFK. Intended as an investigation
of the footage as visual, experiential, and cultural document. In
the USA this footage is both notorious and invisible; seldom actually
seen, it is very well known; when seen, it remains opaque. This
work is intended to add a level of "transparency" to original.
It is set to Jajouka music in order to bring to the foreground the
ritual aspects of this visual, mechanical; and media historical
event.
The current owners of the copyright to the Abraham Zapruder footage
of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, brought legal action last
year to attempt to stop the broadcast of Sanborn's video tape, The
Zapruder Footage.... on Free Speech TV.
Keith Sanborn has been working in film, photography, digital media
and video since the late 1970s. His work has appeared at various
festivals including Ostranenie, the Toronto International Film Festival,
OVNI, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Hong Kong Videotage,
and the New York Video Festival. Sanborn's work has been screened
at various museums and media arts centers such as the Walker Art
Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Anthology Film Archives,
the London Filmmaker's Co-op, Eiszeit Kino, and the San Francisco
Cinematheque.
He has also translated several of the films of Guy Debord, René
Viénet, and Gil Wollman into English.
One of the ongoing concerns of his work has been the investigation
of public images and private perceptions. |
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| REQUIRED
READINGS & WEBSITES |
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| •
Guy Debord & Gil J. Wolman, "A User’s Guide to Détournement"
(May 1956), trans. Ken Knabb,course reader and online http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm |
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• Guy
Debord, "Theory of the Dérive" (1958), trans. Ken Knabb,
course reader and online
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm |
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• Situationist
International, "Definitions" (1958), trans. Ken Knabb, course
reader and online
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/1.definitions.htm |
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•
Situationist International, "All the King’s Men" (1963),
trans. Ken Knabb, course reader and online
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/8.kingsmen.htm |
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| •
René Viénet, "The Situationists and the New Forms of
Action Against Politics and Art" (1967), trans. Ken Knabb, course
reader and online http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/11.newforms.htm |
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•
Peggy Nelson, "X Marks the Spot: Hunting for Buried Treasure with
Keith Sanborn", OtherZine (Spring 2002), online--**note: SCROLL
DOWN to Archive and CLICK Spring 2002
http://www.othercinema.com/ozframe.html |
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| SUGGESTED
READINGS & WEBSITES |
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• Zapruder
Footage--moment bullet impacts JFK's head--online
http://www.jfkin61.com/assassination/dealeyplaza.html |
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| •
Alice Becker-Ho, "The Language of Those in the Know" (Digraphe,
1995; trans., John McHale, 2001), situationist international online--**note:
CLICK post-situationist archive http://situationist.cjb.net/ |
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| • The
Bureau of Public Secrets website http://www.bopsecrets.org/ |
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| • Situationist
International, "Détournement as Negation and Prelude"
(1959), trans. Ken Knabb, online http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/3.detourn.htm |
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| • Mustapha
Khayati, "CAPTIVE WORDS: Preface to a Situationist Dictionary"
(1966), trans. Ken Knabb, online http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/10.captivewords.htm |
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• Situationist
International, "Cinema and Revolution" (1969), trans. Ken Knabb,
online
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/12.cinema.htm |
