These two titles are published back to back, upside down in the manner of the old two-fer pulps. The Neoist manifestoes are republished from Smile magazine which Home called “the official organ of Generation Positive, a movement so avant-garde that it consisted solely of myself.” In 1984, Home joined forces with a Dada-influenced group calling itself the Neoists. As far as can be gleaned from the manifestoes, it would appear that starting art movements as an end in itself is a sort of 20th-century art form. The writing in the actual manifestoes is by turns silly, and occasionally, actual ly brilliant. The influence of Tristan Tzara is especially in evidence, and one manifesto suggests that “Neoism is not a philosophy at all, it is an illegible note that Tristan Tzara allowed to fall from his breast pocket prior to a performance at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916.” It should be noted that these writings are among the first public offerings from a very young and prolific writer.
The Art Strike notion has been floating around the art world since 1968. During martial law in Poland, artists refused to exhibit their work in state galleries, leaving the ruling class without an official culture. Home writes,”what’s important are the questions that something like this poses. Hopefully it is as much about triggering doubts as anything else.” The Art Strike that occurred from 1990 to 1993 came about largely as a giant mail-art event and consisted of this series of essays by various people which raise, among others, the question of how effective such a declaration can be in a free marketplace. The standout among The Art Strike Papers is a piece entitled “Art and Class” by Home. The publication of these two titles as a single book allows us to see Home’s growth as a writer and theorist over a crucial decade in his development. SA

Publisher: AK
Paperback: 100 pages

Thumbnail outline of the seemingly mazelike “utopian” (read “anti-commodity”) movements that seek to replace art and work with some form of more genuine expression. Ties together pataphysics, COBRA, lettrists, Situationist International, Fluxus, auto-destructive art, Provos, Yippies, White Panthers, punk, mail art, and other currents. Anti-romantic non-coffeetable, anti-art history. SS

Publisher: AK
Paperback: 120 pages

A further exploration of Situationist themes, from the most readable, accessible and witty of the original situ writers. AK

Publisher: Left Bank
Paperback: 106 pages

“In the autumn of 1983 a tape recording of a telephone conversation between President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher was sent anonymously to newspapers in various parts of the world. A covering note claimed that the tape was a recording of a crossed phone line on which was heard part of the two leaders’ telephone conversation. In January 1984, the story was taken up by the Sunday Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. The Sunday Times described the tape as part of a KGB propaganda war. The U.S. State Department said that the tape was evidence of ‘an increasingly sophisticated Russian disinformation campaign.’ In fact the tape was made by members of the anarchist punk-rock group Crass. The tape had been produced by using parts of TV and radio broadcasts made by the two leaders, then overdubbed with telephone noises.”

Publisher: AK
Paperback: 24 pages

Guy Debord dramatically broke 20 years of silence to eloquently update his prophetic call-to-arms. “In 1967, in a book entitled The Society of the Spectacle, I showed what the modern spectacle was already in essence: the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign. The disturbances of 1968, which in several countries lasted into the following years, having nowhere overthrown the existing organization of the society from which it springs apparently spontaneously, the spectacle has thus continued to gain strength; that is to spread the furthest limits on all sides, while increasing its density in the center. It has even learned new defensive techniques, as powers under attack always do… Since the spectacle today is certainly more powerful than it was before, what is it doing with this additional power? What point has it reached, that it had not reached previously? What, in short, are its present lines of advance?”

Publisher: Verso
Paperback: 94 pages

Theses and treatises on life and how to live it, in Vaneigem’s beautiful, witty style. AK

Publisher: Elephant
Paperback: 40 pages

Stinging attack on the Situationist International and its legacy—”the major failures of the Situationist International considered in their historical, cultural, psychological, sexual and especially political aspects, appended with the modest proposal that we cease allowing the traditions of the dead generations to dominate the lives of the living.” AK

Publisher: Sabotage
Pamphlet: 40 pages

Complete film script, with an introduction and stills of his last film. Gives an account of the Situationist International’s activities in Europe during the 1950s and ‘60s, reflects on the present situation of the cinema as a social form, and offers a theoretical treatise about the current conditions of consumer capitalism. AK

Publisher: Pelagian
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

A collection of work from novelist and art agitator Stewart Home, this brings together his writings from the mid-’80s onward. This book is concerned with what’s been happening at the cutting edge of culture since the demise of Fluxus and the Situationists. It provides inside information on the Neoists, Plagiarists, Art Strikers, London Psychogeographical Association, K Foundation and other groups that are even more obscure. Rather than offering up a continuous narrative, the text is made of articles, manifestoes, lectures and essays. AK

Publisher: AK
Paperback: 209 pages

According to Jorn, “The field of situlogical experience is divided into two opposed tendencies—the ludic tendency and the analytical tendency—in the tendency of the art, spin and the game, and that of science and its techniques.” By Ken Knabb’s direct manipulation of the Situationist texts and by what he left out of his anthology, only the Debordist wing of the Situationist International (the analytical tendency) has been available for examination by the English-speaking world. This pamphlet uses texts by Asger Jorn to explain the conflict between the Debordists and the Nashists (the ludic tendency), and inadvertently documents the formation of the Second Situationist International (a.k.a. the Bauhaus Situationists). SC

Publisher: Unpopular
Pamphlet: 48 pages
Illustrated