Open AccessFULL AUTOMATION IN ITS INFANCY: THE SITUATIONIST AVANT-GARDE BOOK FIN DE COPENHAGUE
Author(s) -
Dominique Routhier
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the nordic journal of aesthetics/the nordic journal of aesthetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.145
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2000-9607
pISSN - 2000-1452
DOI - 10.7146/nja.v29i60.122841
Subject(s) - reading (process) , situationism , art history , avant garde , art , aesthetics , sociology , humanities , political science , law
This article discusses Fin de Copenhague, a Situationist book experiment from 1957 by Asger Jorn and Guy Debord. By way of a contextualizing archival study with special attention to Jorn’s contemporaneous book project Pour la forme, the article demonstrates that the Russian avant-garde book was a key influence if also a point of critical departure. On this reading, Fin de Copenhague marks a turn away from the unbridled technological optimism of the historical avant-garde. In its material implications and aesthetic choices, Fin de Copenhague draws attention to crucial changes in the capitalist mode of production and challenges the then nascent discourse about “full automation.”