a situationist uprising in london

7/30/2019 A Situationist Uprising in London

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WOW!

Slogans from a violent central London

demonstration on December 9th

, 2010 plus a noteon a slogan by Patrick Cheval

The violent, inspiring student demo in central London on December 9th

2010 was the most imaginative demonstration we have ever been on

including the annus mirabalis of 1968. The Trotskyist left were very much

pushed aside, even the clued-in but all too reductive ultra-left hardly

made a mark, as what was blatantly uppermost everywhere both in a

genial, friendly but vandalistically spirited atmosphere and in many ahomemade, stuck together, often gloriously-penned, cardboard placard

was a kind of open-ended situationist influenced communality; an

individual collectivityyou knew was just rightbecause it felt right. There

was also a fair amount of spray-canned slogans on the base of the statues

in Parliament Square: Things like: Demand the Impossible (very 1968)and First Greece then Paris now London in Insurrection followed by I

wish I could say beautiful things but I cant - when they just had and

hauntingly!

As for the placards consider the following: Employed and Appalled,You can have my brain when you take it from my cold dead hands,

The University is a Factory: Strike, Occupation, I wish my boyfriend

was as dirty as the police, An arts for arts sake strike, Let them eat

credit, Save money eat the poor, Apathy is Dead, I am Julien

Assanage, Smile you are now on a database, Dont make us pay for

what the W(B)ankers did, Fees rise / Class divide etc. Some too were

obviously quite sophisticated extensions around and about the fall out of modern

art: This is not a placard (surely a running commentary on surrealist Rene

Magrittes, This is not a pipe painting of a pipe?) and This is not a good

SIGN (surely a Duchampian commentary and better than the old geezer

himself - on the aridity of post modernism?). And then there was something very

topical: a BBC current affairs intellectual had just got caught out on with a

spoonerism calling Tory minister, Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Cunt thus putting every

born again early 1070s feminists back-up. What a windfall with placards saying

Fuck Fees. Stop the Cu*ts, Tories put the n in cuts, Clegg/Cameron

Cu*ts etc. And not forgetting the splendid posse of Muslim 15 year old gals

(Brick Lane Pakistanis?) wearing hijabs holding up a placard saying Class War,

Clegg is a Wanker.

Also there were a series of large, hefty placards saying: Negative Dialectics:Adorno (while on the back) Sentimental Education: Flaubert. Others were,


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One Dimensional Man: Marcuse, Down and Out in London in Paris:

George Orwell, Life against Death. N. O. Brown. Society of the

Spectacle Debord etc. For us one of these created the best incident of all. Not

retiring intellectual egg-heads some of this lot carrying them went right up front

to the battle lines and a cop was knocked off his horse by the Negative

Dialectics: Adorno placard (other protestors though were helping in derailingthe arsehole) to be whisked off to cop-hospital on the critically injured list. Some

distance away the placard on which was spelt out The Society of the

Spectacle : Debord was then furiously mangled by another cop the remnants

thrown on a protected grass verge fronting Westminster Abbey! (This is all true

and was witnessed by one of us).

Truth is the last few weeks has seen the biggest and most autonomous (well,

on the way to getting there) uprising of students (masked welfare proles in

reality) the UK has ever seen and the art students it seems are to the fore.

Though most of the action (hardly critique) is about cuts in the art and culturegenerally theres a growing contingent beginning to point in the direction where

the transcendence of art lies. Its shaping up to look like what bro and I did in

1968 WRIT LARGE; admittedly more proletarianised today as theres really no

jobs / careers to be had at the end of the line except for grovelling crawlers!

****************************

In 1789 proletarians were necessary because work had

to be done


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In 1989 there is work but only because there are

proletarians

After all critiques of work made by workers what is now

important is the suppression of work

The above slogan was initially painted in very big letters on a wall in Paris

in 1989. It was conceived and executed by Patrick Cheval one of the

original French situationists at the time of the groups dissolution in 1972.

Though the slogan was removed by the usual officially run anti- graffiti

outfit, Jack de Montreuil (ex Os Cangaceiros) made it into a postcard.

Patrick Cheval is outstanding because he was one of the few bona fide

situationists post 1968 who didnt cop out (Neither did Sebastiani or Rene

Reisel but there were others) becoming a menial school caretaker. Alas,

alack poor Yorick, Patrick wasalso an uncontrollable alcoholic and a few

short years after this slogan shone in brief brilliance, the moonshine killed

him. Before he died so youngggg Patrick wrote a book on fishes and

fishing which we hope to place on the RAP web once Jack de Montreuil

fishes it out..

Dave & Stu

SLOGANS

Graffiti

First Greece then Paris now London in insurrection. I wish I could say beautiful

things but I can`t

Demand the Impossible

Placards


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Employed and Appalled

You can have my brain when you take it from my cold dead hands

Negative dialectics. Adorno (on the back - Sentimental Education. Flaubert

One Dimensional Man. Marcuse

Society of the Spectacle .Debord (later removed by the riot police defending

Westminster Abbey)

Down and out in London and Paris.Orwell

Life against Death. N.O.Brown

The university is a factory

Strike Occupation

You can have my brain when you take it from my cold dead hands

Tories put the n` in cuts

Clegg/Cameron Cu-ts

Fuck Fees. Stop the Cu-ts

I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as the police

An arts for arts sake strike


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Art against the cuts

`Let them eat credit`

Fees rise / Class divide

I am Julien Assanage

Save money eat the poor

This is not a good SIGN

This is not a placard

A tax on the rich not attacks on the poor

Apathy is Dead

Don`t make us pay for what the W/Bankers did

Smile you are now on a data base

We are doing it for estate kids

a situationist uprising in london

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