Abstract
Although the construction of situations plays a key role in the Situationist International (SI) and the spectacle has become the presented image and method of presentation in the modern world, everyday life becomes another key word which has also run through the whole history of the Situtionist International. The relationship between spectacle and life has taken such a form that life is the foundation of the society with spectacle being the symptom of the society and life is fluid with spectacle being its external phenomenon. SI has realized its historical transition from revolution to practice in everyday life, and the transition shows both in Guy Debord's changing standpoint from The Society of the Spectacle to his own Comments on the Society of the Spectacle and in the changing theses from Raoul Vaneigem's Revolution of Everyday Life to Michel de Certeau's Practice of Everyday Life. Situationism, like Dadaism and Surrealism, seeks to break the boundary between art and life, but it surpasses Dadaism and Surrealism through its creation of art by way of destroying art. The failure of SI can be attributed to its loss of inner agency as well as the decline of the art movement, and the reasons for the failure show in the three aspects of commercialization, individuation and aestheticization. Today, although SI has failed, life aesthetics has learned a lesson from the failure, and a set of aesthetic politics can be developed into a new direction that is aligned with the profound transition from politics of emancipation to politics of life.
First Page
110
Last Page
129
Recommended Citation
Liu, Yuedi. 2016. "From "Revolution" to "Practice" in Everyday Life: The Future of Life Aesthetics as Seen from the Failure of the Situationist International." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 36, (3): pp.110-129. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol36/iss3/9
