Guy Debord - Written Works

Written Works

Guy Debord's best known works are his theoretical books, Society of the Spectacle and Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. In addition to these he wrote a number of autobiographical books including Mémoires, Panégyrique, Cette Mauvaise Réputation... and Considérations sur l'assassinat de Gérard Lebovici. He was also the author of numerous short pieces, sometimes anonymous, for the journals Potlatch, Les Lèvres Nues, Les Chats Sont Verts, and Internationale Situationniste.

Debord was deeply distressed by the hegemony of governments and media over everyday life through mass production and consumption. He criticized both the capitalism of the West and the dictatorial communism of the Eastern bloc for the lack of autonomy allowed to individuals in both governmental structures. Debord postulated that Alienation had gained a new relevance through the invasive forces of the 'spectacle' - "a social relation between people that is mediated by images" consisting of mass media, advertisement and popular culture. The spectacle is a self-fulfilling control mechanism for society. Debord's analysis developed the notions of "reification" and "fetishism of the commodity" pioneered by Karl Marx and Georg Lukács. Semiotics was also a major influence, particularly the work of his contemporary, Roland Barthes, who actually coined the term, "the society of the spectacle", which Debord appropriated as the title for his most celebrated book. Debord's analysis of "the spectaclist society" probed the historical, economic and psychological roots of the media and popular culture. Central to this school of thought was the claim that alienation is more than an emotive description or an aspect of individual psychology: rather, it is a consequence of the mercantile form of social organization which has reached its climax in capitalism, as theorized by Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School.

The Situationist International (SI), a political/artistic movement organized by Debord and his colleagues and represented by a journal of the same name, attempted to create a series of strategies for engaging in class struggle by reclaiming individual autonomy from the spectacle. These strategies, including "dérive" and "détournement," drew on the traditions of Lettrism. As founder of the SI, it has been suggested that Debord felt driven to generalize and define the values, ideas, and characteristics of the entire group, which may have contributed to his hand-picking and expultion of members. However, the hierarchical and dictatorial nature of the SI existed in the groups that birthed it, including the Letterists and the Surrealists.

The SI was the fusion of several extremely small avant-garde artistic tendencies: the Letterist International, the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (an off-shoot of COBRA), and the London Psychogeographical Association in 1957. After an intense period of theoretical analysis, publication and the expulsion of most of its few members, leading to the Second Situationist International, the Situationist Antinational and the Situationist Bauhaus, Debord dissolved the SI in 1972.

Debord's first book, Mémoires, was bound with a sandpaper cover so that it would destroy other books placed next to it.

Debord has been the subject of numerous biographies, works of fiction, artworks and songs, many of which are catalogued in the bibliography by Shigenobu Gonzalves, "Guy Debord ou la Beauté du Negatif."

It is often suggested that Debord was opposed to the creation of art. However, Debord writes in the Situationist International magazine ("Contre la Cinema") that he believes that "ordinary" (quotidian) people should make "everyday" (quotidian) art; art and creation should liberate from the spectacle, from capitalism, and from the banality of everyday life in contemporary society. In "The Society of the Spectacle," Debord argues that it is the price put on art that destroys the integrity of the art object, not the material or the creation itself. Perhaps this is how Debord justified his filmmaking. It is imporant to note that Debord does not equate art to "the spectacle."