My only qualification for writing this book is some time spent in a certain militant organization, then in a bohemian periphery, and subsequently in avant-garde formations that met at the nexus of media, theory and action. This was all long ago and far away, but nevertheless my main obligation is to salute some comrades from all three worlds who taught me invaluable things.
This book is for certain friends from those worlds within worlds who, for various reasons, fell before their time. Some of their names are acknowledged in the dedication, others will be known to those who need to know.
Thanks to Joan Ockman and Mark Wigley for the invitation to give the Buell Lecture at Columbia University in 2007, from which this book eventually evolved. Thanks also to my hosts for conversations at NYU, MIT, UCLA, UC Irvine, Dartmouth, Princeton, Brown, Parsons School of Design, the New School for Social Research, Laboral, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Cabinet, and 16 Beaver. Thanks to my Lang College students, past and present.
Earlier versions of some material appeared in Multitudes, Angelaki, as an introduction to Guy Debord, Correspondence (Semiotext(e)) and in my booklet 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International (Princeton Architectural Press). Thanks to readers for useful comments, which led to substantial modifications.
Special thanks to Kevin C. Pyle for collaborating on Totality for Kids, part of which appears here as the cover. The Situationists détourned comics by inserting their own texts into the speech bubbles. Kevin and I reverse the process. The words I have mostly détourned from Situationist classics. Kevin’s art is the new element.
Thanks for research assistance to Whitney Krahn and in particular Julia P. Carrillo. Also to librarians at Bobst, Brown, Columbia and MoMA, and to innumerable Lang colleagues for their advice, whether I followed it correctly or not. Thanks to The New School for a faculty research grant, and to Warhol Foundation | Creative Capital for an art writer’s grant.
When I gave Tino Sehgal a copy of 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International one day in Central Park, he exclaimed at once: “May there be fifty years more!” My thanks to Tino for the invitation to interpret his work This Situation at the Marian Goodman Gallery, and to all of the other interpreters and visitors for many hours of underpaid but stimulating conversation about “the situation.”
I would also like to offer a special thanks to those who, in the true spirit of potlatch, translate and archive Situationist writings and make them freely available: The Bureau of Public Secrets, Infopool, Not Bored, The Situationist International Online Archive, Unpopular Books and others.
Lastly, a shout out to Brooklyn Rod and Gun Club and the Lake-house Commune, and most of all: love to Christen, Felix and Vera.