Wark Review

The Spectacle of Disintegration: Situationist Passages Out of the 20^th Century by McKenzie Wark discusses the history and present day narrative of the Situationists and the Situationism movement. The Situationism movement took place between the 1950s and 70s and was led by an organization called Situationist International, which was comprised of a group of intellectuals, artists, political theorist, and social revolutionaries that sought to challenge and critique modern society and its perpetual use of capitalism. Wark argues that although the movement officially ended in 1972, it isn’t really over and Situationist ideology is still present today.

            Wark is critical of people in modern society not knowing the difference between what one needs and what one desires. As a consequence of capitalism, people have fallen into believing they need material items as opposed to just wanting them. He also believes that almost everything has become a part of consumerism—for instance, his mention of sex once being a private act but being transformed into a public market for buyer consumption. Wark believes mass media/the government, or the spectacle, is to blame for this. The idea of the spectacle was the most interesting part of the book in my opinion. The spectacle is the relationship between people and the images shown in the media. These images include material items and luxuries as well as images of people (celebrities). These images seem to have control over the average person because consumerism has become so engrained in every day life of those in modern society. The idea of the spectacle is very relevant to today. Images shown in the mass media definitely have control over many people because they shape many people’s ideas. The mass media teaches people how to classify and view things—whether it is: who is or isn’t beautiful, what is acceptable as a career/job, what kind of car one should drive, how one should dress, how one should view certain groups of people, etc. Many of Wark’s ideas and the ideas of the Situationist coincide with Marxist theories.

            While I am biased to some of the ideas expressed in the book because of my personal opinions about capitalism and modern society, I still had many problems with this book. First and foremost, the book was written with the assumption that the reader had previous and vast knowledge of French art. The book brings up a lot of works of art, especially paintings, and explains their connection to the Situationism movement. As somebody who doesn’t know anything about French art, this aspect made some parts of the book hard to fully understand. In addition to this, Wark speaks of the life and work of many people that are also not commonly known to people who do not already have background knowledge on the given topic. Although this book is a sequel, it still seems that someone educated in the things that I have been educated in lacks much of the knowledge needed to really get into the book without asking an overload of questions.

            Despite this, there were things that I learned from the book. I feel that I gained more understanding of participatory culture by learning about Situationists International because their goal was to use participatory culture to create a more democratic and participatory society. By banding together as a community with a common goal, the Situationists used participatory culture. Each member of Situationist International contributed whatever he or she could offer in hopes of changing the world. Their coming together to participate in a common thing is similar to people that come together on the Internet to participate in common interests, such as our class blog. By working together with the goal of changing the world for the better, Situationist International was using participatory culture in a beneficial way, which I think participatory culture is about. Participatory culture aims to include everybody—to be inherently democratic—benefiting everybody and not just elite groups.