Situating Situationism: Wandering around New Babylon with Mille Plateaux

Abstract

This paper explores the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with respect to art, space, and politics. Specifically, I wish to suggest an affinity between their philosophy and the work of the Dutch artist Constant, who was one of the originators of the Situationist International movement in post-war Europe. Deleuze and Guattari's ideas of re-territorialization, constructivism, and nomadology find a resonance with Constant's project of New Babylon, a project he worked on for more than twenty years. Recently, many scholarly works have assessed the intellectual legacy of the Situationist International. Given the solid foundation of this historical work, this paper proposes instead to extend the argument in the direction of the philosophy that would be later proposed in What is Philosophy? and Mille Plateaux. In contrast to a purely historical account, this paper juxtaposes several of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas in an encounter with Constant that aims for a bleeding over, or migration, of relevant themes into new productive territories. With regards to the politics of place, to begin, this paper briefly sketches out the historical position of the Situationist International in Europe, and specific proposals for a project called New Babylon by Constant, an early member of the group. Then a discussion of the political grounding of any possible notion of utopia is followed by a comparison between Deleuze and Guattari's notion of ‘constructivism’ and Constant's notion of ‘construction.’ In conclusion, this paper asks what are the possible consequences or implications of a utopian notion of nomadism upon contemporary life.