through europe - barker-eng

Class War Games Presents: Guy Debord’s The Game of War

John Barker — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:39:03 +0000

This 80 page book by Richard Barbrook and Fabian Thompsett is an extension of the film script that forms the basis of Ilze Black’s film. Of the same name. It describes how a group was formed to popularize and play the Game of War which GuyDebord spent the last 10 years of his life developing and playing with Alice Becker-Ho. It lists the various public venues where the group has played the game in real time, but also describes the game in detail and hints at why they think it is important. The first, unstated, is to rescue Debord, long term member and survivor of the Situationist International (SI), from the ironic recuperation of him and the SI by the cultural establishment they despised. Ironic because they were so hot on any kind of politics that could be, as they called it, recuperated, that is, absorbed by the very ‘Spectacle’ they had described. To have an exhibition devoted to them at the Pompidou Centre in 1987, and then for his personal archive to be described as ‘a national treasure’ by the French Minister of Culture in 2009 was the unkindest cut for someone who lived by the sword. The Game of War however does not fit this Debord-made safe, just as he himself truly did live by the sword, ripping of the bourgeoisie whenever possible and including with his own suicide that meant Alice would have some money. Instead, the Game claims a seriousness about not just analyzing capitalism and its monologue, but thinking strategically about how to go about participating in its downfall.

Occupied London... For Real

John Barker — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:49:10 +0000

Today went down for a 'walk' starting at Stratford Station through the Carpenter estate organized by tenants under siege from Newham Council and the Corporate Olympics and felt sick with anger. Remembered that had been on a 'walk' some 6 years ago when the Olympic Committee came to 'see' London and its suitability for the Olympics to say that we didn't want it. We were far too few so that if it was noticed at all on a very cold day, it would have been counter-productive. But we did see what some of its implications would be -existing sports grounds being mashed up and Hackney marshes encroached on. That time it didn't take in the Carpenters estate.
Processes of class-cleansing have taken place in Hackney and been understood as such. Knowing too that Global Sporting Spectaculars in Beijing, Delhi and South Africa have been used to give a boost to this process in other cities and that it is already happening in Brazil where both the next Football World Cup and Olympics are due. Today though could see how comprehensively strategic the process is, how planned and how 'in your face' it is. First thing we see is that down the side walls of two oldish high rises in which people live there are huge (100 feet tall?) and aggressive advertisements for Gillette. This in addition to the ubiquitous Coca Cola and McDonalds flim-flam.
On the estate there are hundreds of empty flats.On the Council waiting list there are 32,000 and there will be many thousand more who can't even get on it. The council say they are unfit and have steel shutters over them. Our tenant guides say this is not true and even if they had not said it we could see it with our own eyes, how in the same two storey blocks some were lived in and others shuttered up. Lots of them. And the function of this we see as we pass one shop that is open, is to MAKE THE PLACE LOOK RUN-DOWN and therefore in need of regeneration.
How sick is this!

Slump

John Barker — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:24:08 +0000

I'm deep breathing. I am.

Lucky I can. With the knowhow. It stands to reason relaxing's not the easiest thing in the world otherwise there'd be relaxed people wherever you went. I was at the Facility at 2.30 and the Unit at 4 and I didn't see too many relaxed people round there. At the Annexe I didn't see any at all.

Lungs in good running order. What do you expect, immaculate bodywork? It goes doesn't it?

Fresh Start

John Barker — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:18:46 +0000

I’m a person.

I’ve got money. I went in a shop. I’ve got my cassette. It’s in my pocket. I bought it in the shop. Brother James and Sister Sue will play it when I get there. They’ll play it and they’ll sing and I’ll sing.

She’s not really called Sister Sue, that’s what I call her. She doesn’t mind. My feet are wet. They’re wet inside my trainers and they’ll be all wrinkly. They gave me these trainers at Makepeace House, when I left. Before that I wore slippers. When I was at Makepeace House I wore slippers and in the grounds I wore Wellingtons.

Stationary

Federico Campagna — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:37:25 +0000

Lettie said, I'm no genius never said I was, but my memory's in shape, know what I’m saying. Had said it to Mikeymike just the day before, down by the Sanitation Area, B Entrance. Had put him straight when he'd been on about the Roller, how long since he'd been seen on The Concourse.

18 months back, Mikeymike had said, when an Economy Toblerone was 41.

Thirtynine, she'd said. And not just that, but if he really focussed he'd remember it was exactly eighteen months ago give or take a week that there'd been talk of the 40 barrier being breached; and how in fact it never had been 41

but jumped straight to 45.

Intensities of Labour: From Amphetamine to Cocaine

Federico Campagna — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:33:33 +0000

At the end of the 1960s young and cocky Situationists like myself talked of the Japanese economic miracle – because then it was the Japanese miracle –as being fuelled by amphetamine. The evidence was anecdotal, but it was well known that the cheaply-made drug was a major business for the Yakuza. This particular miracle was manufacturing-based, electronics and autos figured prominently. In modern parlance, it was Fordist.

Cheap Chinese

John Barker — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:55:33 +0000

In June of 2000 58 Chinese people died of mass suffocation in the container of a lorry that arrived on a ferry at Dover. They died trying to enter the UK illegally. The direct cause of these deaths was the blocking of the air vents worked into the container by the driver, a Dutchman, Perry Wacker. He is the worst of criminals, a panicker lacking the basic nerve required, in this case, cutting the air supply from a fear of being caught. The reporting of the case by large sections of the British media was either downright callous, or sympathetic in abstract terms only, the horror felt from putting ourselves in the shoes of those who died, presumed to be too much.

Chop Chop

John Barker — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:44:28 +0000

He must press on. No time to be lost. If there ever had been time to lose, he did not remember it. Sunday evenings? Perhaps, evenings when he should be sat down with his dreams but even then, how could anyone cross their heart and say that was lost time. How could you win without having your dreams?