Seminar on the Situationist movement in Scandinavia
Folkets Hus, Copenhagen, March 15 & 16, 2007 
Though the radical art movement the Situationist International has gained still further attention during the last fifteen years, large areas of the movement's activities still remain in the shadows. Especially the actions and proposals of the Scandinavian sections remain little known. Both the art works and activities of J. V. Martin, who headed the Scandinavian section of the First Situationist International, and the diverse practices of the people involved in the Second Situationist International around Jørgen Nash, await a critical art historical reception. In contrast to the continental currents within the Situationist movement, there have been relatively few sustained efforts to analyse the Scandinavian currents within both the First and the Second Situationist International and to understand the significance of its activities in historical terms. Within the art historical reception, Guy Debord and the French section have been the exclusive objects of attention. This threatens to homogenize the very diverse and contradictory material that the Situationist movement produced. The privileging of the French section of the Situationist movement has tended to reduce the activities of the Scandinavian sections to a juvenile and silly version of the real Situationist organisation based in Paris. Because of this situation, art historians have been hesitant to approach the Scandinavian material. The aim of the conference is to contribute to the remedial of this by shedding some light on the diverse activities that Situationists in Scandinavia were engaged in during the 1960’s and by discussing problems in the historiography of the Situationist movement in general.
Participants: Jacqueline de Jong (NL), visual artist and former member of the SI. Karen Kurczynski (US), visiting assistant professor at Massachusetts College of Art and author of articles on Asger Jorn. Stewart Home (UK), activist, artist and author to The Assault on Culture: Utopia Currents from Lettrism to Class War. Peter Laugesen (DK), poet and former member of the SI. Hardy Strid (SE), visual artist and former member of the SI (present by statement). Lars Morell (DK), historian and author of Poesien breder sig. Jørgen Nash, Drakabygget og situationisterne. Involved with Drakkabygget in the 1980s. Tom McDonough (US), associate professor at Binghamton University and editor of Guy Debord and the Situationist Internationale, MIT Press Gordon Fazakerley (UK/DK), visual artist and founding member of Drakkabygget. Fabian Tompsett (UK), author, artist and activist and one of the members of the London Psychogeographical Association. Zwi, Negator (DE) from the team of authors biene baumeister zwi negator: situationistische revolutionstheorie. eine aneignung, stuttgart 2005. Carl Nørrested (DK), film historian and author of Eksperimentalfilm i Danmark The seminar is organised by: Mikkel Bolt (DK), assistant professor at Copenhagen University and author of Den Sidste Avantgarde: Situationistisk Internationale hinsides kunst og politik. Jakob Jakobsen (DK), visual artist living and working at the Copenhagen Free University. Hosts the Danish Situationist website. The seminar is organised in collaboration with The Copenhagen Free University, The Nordic Netvork of Avant Garde Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts & The Funen Art Academy. Venue: The Peoples House, Nørrebro, Copenhagen. A social centre and squat since the 1970s hosting various groups of activists and artists from the leftist scene of Copenhagen. Info: http://destroysi.dk 
