Self-proclaimed leader of the Situationist International, Guy Debord was certainly responsible for the longevity and high profile of Situationist ideas, although the equation of the SI with Guy Debord would be misleading. Brilliant but autocratic, Debord helped both unify situationist praxis and destroy its expansion into areas not explicitly in line with his own ideas. His text The Society of the Spectacle remains today one of the great theoretical works on modern-day capital, cultural imperialism, and the role of mediation in social relationships. The work was remixed by the art collective DJRABBI here.

Inherited Auto-Affection and Processual Filters, Or: Born-Digital Remixers

Upon doing a vanity search on my name, I, Guy Debord came across this odd essay at a site in Montréal where the author starts off by writing:

What does it mean to become a remixologist?

He then proceeds to quote me by writing:

Guy Debord wrote in his Methods of Détournement

Any elements, no matter where they are taken from, can serve in making new combinations. The discoveries of modern poetry regarding the analogical structure of images demonstrate that when two objects are brought together, no matter how far apart their original contexts may be, a relationship is always formed.

 

OK, so where is he going with that? A traditional citation, to be sure. Whatever!

But then, this:

Contemporary remixologists play on Debordian détournement

by détourning lifestyle situations that feed into

their artistic methods as artist-agents

intervening in the creative process using whatever

inherited auto-affection and processual filters they have stored

inside their image-making body/brain apparatus

 

Though Debord appears to not to have had as much fun

as the contemporary remixologists his work inevitably informs

he still challenges them to take hold of

the available source material

so that one can then manipulate it to their heart’s content

as a way of leaving the propaganda machine behind

or at least creating a counterpropaganda force

that will lead to more dynamic COMPOSITION BY FIELD

(to capitalize a theme introduced by poet Charles Olson)

 

But can this propaganda machine ever truly be left behind?”

At first, I was appalled by such uncritical reflection, as if I were just random bits of data to be misused for some DIY art-theory performance.

But after some serious thought, my delayed response is yes, we can successfully leave it behind.

The real question, though, should be, “Is it possible to ever truly find God?”

The rest of the entry can be found here.