Situationist International

The Situationist International (Internationale Situationniste, IS) was a revolutionary alliance of European avant-garde artists, writers and theorists formed in 1957 at a conference in Italy. Uniting former members of Lettrism, the COBRA group and other formations, it sought to dissolve the boundary between art and everyday life while attacking the capitalist "society of the spectacle." Its central figure was Guy Debord, author of The Society of the Spectacle (1967); the circle also included Asger Jorn and Raoul Vaneigem. The Situationists developed concepts such as the dérive (drift), psychogeography and détournement, the hijacking and subversion of existing images. Their ideas strongly shaped the May 1968 student uprising in Paris. The movement's legacy echoes in Ukrainian critical art and activist practices that rethink urban space, media and power structures, challenging the passive consumption of culture and everyday life.