The Situationists have influenced culture in subtle ways, small slips of their pens leading to later avalanches. Short phrases have gone on to change lives.
The Lettrist International was obsessed with the problems of cities. They wanted to break down division, to make space for art and play. Ivan Chtcheglov’s Formulary for a new Urbanism is one of their most powerful manifestos: “We are bored in the city,” wrote Chtcheglov. He feared being trapped in a world of boring leisure, a land of ‘banalization’.
Chtcheglov demanded a new vision of the city, an expansion of dream life. He wanted ‘houses where one cannot help but love’. He feared that people were no longer “setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. That’s all over. You’ll never see the hacienda.”
The Lettrists mutated into the Situationists. Via Chris Gray’s translations in Leaving the 20th Century, they supplied a philosophical basis for punk; and Chtcheglov’s claim that “the Hacienda must be built” inspired the entrepreneur Tony Wilson, who used the name for his nightclub.
The story of Factory records passed into legend even as the participants were still alive, with Wilson cameoing in a film about his life. He was played by Steve Coogan, who did a good job of portraying Wilson’s hubris (even now, spending £20,000 on a table seems incredible). But, alongside it all, was something inspiring – a man whose record company collapsed because he’d never forced his bands into contracts.
Tony Wilson died in 2007. He was suffering from renal cancer, and could not afford the cancer drugs he needed. He was interviewed just before he died: “I used to say ‘some people make money and some make history’, which is very funny until you find you can’t afford to keep yourself alive.”
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