[Guy Debord] Le Surréalisme, une révolution de l’irrationnel [1968]

Anonymous [Debord, Guy]. Les Cahiers de l’Encyclopedie du Monde Actuel no. 35.  Le Surréalisme, une révolution de l’irrationnel. Lausanne: Rencontres, September 1968. 32 p.; ill.; 14 x 20 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with pictures of surrealist books and leaflets.

Text attributed to Guy Debord, which features a brief history of the Surrealist movement.

Gerard Berreby, who spoke to Donald Nicholson-Smith, Mustapha Khayati, and a few others explains the genesis of the Situationists’ participation to the Encyclopedie du Monde Actuel: “The participation of the “situationist group” in the Encyclopédie du monde actuel [EDMA] wasn’t official. There were a few small-paying jobs to which some members of the SI devoted themselves. The work consisted in drafting “EDMA cards” and, eventually, monthly booklets. (Each perforated card included a 500-word-long text; each booklet contained around 30 illustrated pages.) At the start, in 1966, it was my wife, Cathy Pozzo di Borgo, and I who began to produce, on a freelance basis, this type of card under the direction of André Fougerousse – Cathy’s stepfather – for publication by Editions Rencontre in Lausanne. Along with Charles-Henri Favrod, Fougerousse had been (in 1962) one of the founders of this editorial project. Later on, we passed the cards “to be done” to friends, including Mustapha and Raoul [Vaneigem]…The members of the SI, no doubt with Raoul at the head, had, for the most part, continued to contribute to EDMA more or less until 1974. In this way, many of the booklets were written by situationists or ex-situs – even after the dissolution of the movement in 1972. Guy Debord drafted Le Surréalisme in September 1968. ” (translation by NotBored!; emphasis is mine).

Uncommon, with a single copy on OCLC and none in the trade.

We reproduce the text in full below as we do not believe it is available anywhere online

July 4, 2021 update: A complete English translation now available:
https://thesinisterscience.com/2021/07/02/surrealism-an-irrational-revolution/
and here:
https://www.academia.edu/49504538/_Surrealism_an_irrational_revolution_by_Guy_Debord

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Le Jeu de la guerre de Guy Debord: l’émancipation comme projet [2020]

GUY, Emmanuel. Le Jeu de la guerre de Guy Debord: l’émancipation comme projet [2020]. Paris: Editions B42, October 2020. 192 p.; ill.; 16.5 x 23.5 cm. Ill. black cover with text in white and purple.

Situationist scholar Emmanuel Guy graces us with the first book-length analysis of the Jeu de la Guerre and, more broadly, of Guy Debord as a strategist. Guy had already written on the topic (see, for instance, here). He also wrote the preface to Strategie , a compendium of Guy Debord’s extensive reading notes on the topic (these notes, which were organized by Debord himself prior to his passing, are all preserved in the manuscript department of the French National Library).

Below is the editor’s presentation of the book.

“On connaît Guy Debord pour avoir été poète, cinéaste, artiste, théoricien révolutionnaire, directeur de revue et fondateur de mouvements
d’avant-garde. Mais il a surtout été stratège. Qu’entend-on par là ? Qu’il a utilisé la poésie, le cinéma, la théorie et l’avant-garde dans le cadre d’un conflit avec la société de son temps. Un objet en particulier dans la production de Guy Debord répond de cet objectif : le Jeu de la guerre, qui avait pour vocation d’aiguiser le sens stratégique et la conscience d’une lutte à mener. Au milieu des années 1950, Debord conçoit un jeu constitué d’un plateau quadrillé et de pions représentant les diverses unités d’une armée. En tant que modélisation de la guerre, ce jeu participe des recherches situationnistes sur l’environnement construit, la vie aliénée et les moyens de s’en émanciper. À l’heure où le design tend à envahir les discours et à englober de plus en plus de champs de l’activité créative, technique, sociale et économique, et alors que l’art ne cesse de repenser les conditions de sa validité critique, Emmanuel Guy propose ici une réflexion sur le rôle de la stratégie dans tout projet d’émancipation.”

Translation: “Guy Debord is known for having been a poet, filmmaker, artist, revolutionary theorist, magazine editor, and founder of avant-garde movements. But above all, he was a strategist. What do we mean by that? That he used poetry, film, theory and the avant-garde as part of his fight against the society of his time. One thing in Guy Debord’s production best speaks to this : the Game of War, which was intended to sharpen the strategic sense and the awareness of a struggle to be waged. In the mid-1950s, Debord designed a game consisting of a board and game pieces representing different army units. As a representation of war, this game is a contribution to situationist research on the constructed environment, alienated life and the means to emancipate oneself from it. At a time when design tends to invade discourse and encompass more and more fields of creative, technical, social and economic activity, and while art continues to rethink the conditions of its critical validity, Emmanuel Guy offers here a reflection on the role of strategy in emancipation projects. “

Copies can be obtained from the editor here or online.