In 1994 Guy Debord killed himself, a few weeks short of his 63rd birthday.
His greatest works include the book The Society of the Spectacle (1967), the film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (1978) and the role he played in the Lettrist International (1952-57) and the Situationist International (1957-72).
I am currently writing a biography of Debord, to be published by Pluto. Slowly.
I can recommend two sources of material on Debord, the SI and LI. The NOT BORED! site houses an idiosyncratic but large, well-linked and - most important - ever-growing collection of English-language material. The site houses translations, original documents from the SI's English and American members, commentary and polemic. A labour of love and a genuinely impressive site.
The archives at www.nothingness.org don't have the same degree of linkage or growth-rate, but do house some important and interesting material, much of it in French. Both sites also include some graphics (the Debord image above was borrowed from Mannoni's site, now incorporated into www.nothingness.org).
Here are a few things I've written about Debord and the SI:
Introduction to Debord and the SI (Catalyst, 1991)
Review of Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (Tribune, 1991)
Review of Panegryric (unpublished, 1994)
The construction of situations and the spectre of situationism (Newcastle, 1996)
The Hacienda must be destroyed (Manchester, 1996)
Correspondence with a biographer (London Review of Books, 1999)
Related:
Critique of the Art Strike (Here and Now, 1991)
Reviews of Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces and The Dustbin of History (Tribune, 1989 and New Statesman and Society, 1996)
Last updated: 24th July 2001
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