Stracey, Frances; (2001) Pursuit of the Situationist subject. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), University of London.

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Abstract

The thesis investigates the aesthetic and political formation of the subject within the Situationist International (1957-1972) through the demonstration of its constitutive role in certain exemplary Situationist works. This is complemented by a critical elaboration of the Situationist subject, with particular attention to the construction of its sexuality. The thesis therefore counters the general neglect of the Situationist subject in recent scholarship and its corresponding misrepresentation of the work of the Situationist International. The Introduction analyses the Situationists' concept of the subject through their definitions of 'situationist', 'constructed situation', 'phenomeno-praxis' and 'theory-in-practice'. Chapter 1, 'The Cavern of Anti-Matter', focuses on the social and psychic conditions of the subject as it emerges through Pinot Gallizio's installation. Chapter 2, 'The situationist Image: Exchange, Excess and the Traffic in Waste', analyses the Situationists' critique of the economy of the image in the 'society of the Spectacle' through the model of a potlatch economy, which is developed in terms of certain feminist critiques. Chapter 3, 'Graffiti and the Trace of Subversion', investigates the emergence of the subject on the streets of Paris during the events of May 1968, providing a detailed exegesis of Raoul Vaneigem's concept of 'radical subjectivity' in relation to certain images of graffiti. Chapter 4, 'Surviving History: Remembrance and the Situationist Archive', analyses the historical construction of the subject through the Situationists' alternative model of the archive, developed in order to avoid conventional forms of monumentalization.

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