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1961

January

6 to 8 Second session of the Central Council of the SI in Paris. Participants: Debord, Jorn, Kotànyi, Nash, Prem (standing in for Sturm), Wyckaert.
Study of the construction of an experimental city (Utopolis).

January Manifesto, manifesto on the festival, Spur group (Sturm, Prem, Fischer, Kunzelmann, Zimmer), Munich.

Avantgarde ist unerwünscht! (The Avant-Garde is Undesirable!), tract by the German (Lothar Fischer, Dieter Kunzelmann, Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm, Hans-Peter Zimmer), Scandinavian (Asger Jorn, Stefan Larsson, Katja Lindell, Jørgen Nash) and Belgian (Maurice Wyckaert) sections, Munich.

January to February Editing of Guy Debord's film Critique of Separation.
One reel (20 min), 35 mm, black and white. Produced by the Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilms Kompagni and Laboratoire GTC. Sound recorded at Marignan studio. Cinematographer: André Mrugalski. Editor: Chantal Delattre. Assistant director: Bernard Davidson. Script: Claude Brabant. Grip: Bernard Largemain.
Music: Couperin, March of the Champagne Regiment; Bodin de Boismortier, Allegro movement. Op. 37 — Concerto in E Minor in five parts.
Voice-over: Caroline Rittener, Guy Debord.

February

For a Revolutionary Judgment of Art by G.-E. Debord, critical text in response to the article by S. Chatel (pseudonym of Sébastien de Diesbach) in Socialisme ou Barbarie #1 on Godard's film Breathless; this text eventually appears in early 1962 in issue three of the Bordeaux based Notes critiques, bulletin of research and revolutionary orientation, 'twice yearly publication by autonomous Arguments groups.'

Spur #4, journal of the German section of the SI, Munich. Editor: Zimmer. Editorial committee: Prem, Sturm, Fischer.

Hanegal, gallisk poesiealbum, book by Jørgen Nash illustrated by JV Martin. Édition Internationale situationniste, Paris. The cover is made of cardboard and wire.

March

10 Guy Debord draws up the general plan for the Situationist Library at the Silkeborg Kunstmuseum, Denmark.

April

11 to 13 Third session of the SI's Central Council in Munich. Participants: Debord, Kotànyi, Nash, Sturm.
Exclusion of Maurice Wyckaert from the Belgian section, following an attempt to meddle in the SI's affairs by the art dealer Otto Van de Loo, who had hoped to influence its politics by making threats and promises to several situationists with whom he had personal relations.
In order to deal with his increasingly pervasive fame, the Central Council accepts the resignation of Asger Jorn from the French section. Jorn affirms his complete accord with the SI, demonstrating it in writing (he continues his participation in the SI under the pseudonym George Keller for around a year).
The Central Council, reduced to four members, decides not to meet again until the next SI conference, where it will be reorganized.

Musique phénoménale (Phenomenal Music), text by Asger Jorn accompanying the four albums of 'chaosmic music' written and recorded between December 1960 and February 1961 with Jean Dubuffet, Galleria del Cavallino, Venice.

May

5 Guy Debord breaks with the Pouvoir Ouvrier group of Socialisme ou barbarie.

17 Perspectives for Conscious Changes in Everyday Life, speech delivered by tape recorder by Guy Debord before a conference of the Group for Research on Everyday Life, convened by Henri Lefebvre at the CNRS Center for Sociological Studies.

Alexander Trocchi escapes the persecutions of the New York police by secretly crossing the Canadian border, then returning to Europe.

June

Spur #5, journal of the German section of the SI, Munich. Special issue on unitary urbanism. Editor: Zimmer. Editorial committee: Prem, Sturm, Kunzelmann. Threats of seizure fail to prevent the publication of this issue.

August

Internationale Situationniste #6. Central bulletin published by the sections of the Situationist International. Editor: G.-E. Debord. Editorial committee (Central Council of the SI): Debord, Kotànyi, Nash, Sturm (resignation of Jacques Ovadia, no section).

Spur #6, journal of the German section of the SI, Drakabygget, Sweden. Editorial committee: Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem, Hans-Peter Zimmer, Dieter Kunzelmann, Katja and Jørgen Nash.

28 to 30 Fifth SI Conference in Göteborg, Sweden. Participants: Guy Debord, Ansgar Elde, Jacqueline de Jong, Attila Kotànyi, Dieter Kunzelmann, Steffan Larsson, Jeppesen Victor Martin, Jørgen Nash, Heimrad Prem, Gretel Stadler, Hardy Strid, Helmut Sturm, Raoul Vaneigem, Hans-Peter Zimmer.
Jacqueline de Jong and Attila Kotànyi are added to the editorial committee of Spur.
Hans-Peter Zimmer is appointed to the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism in Brussels.
Designation of a new Central Council composed of Debord, Elde, Kotànyi, Kunzelmann, Lausen, Nash and Vaneigem.

September

The Hamburg Theses by Guy Debord, Attila Kotànyi and Raoul Vaneigem, with later contributions from Alexander Trocchi. These theses, which were never committed to writing, and whose conclusions would deliberately be kept secret, could be summed up in a single phrase: 'Now, the SI must realize philosophy.'

13 Resignation of André Frankin, no section.

29 La Nuit (The Night), novel by Michèle Bernstein, Paris.

November

9 Interview with Asger Jorn in the Danish journal Aften-Posten on the foundation of the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism in Silkeborg.

Flugblatt, tract in German by Sturm, Fischer, Zimmer, Kunzelmann and Prem denouncing the seizure of all six issues of the journal Spur and the indictment of the Spurists, countersigned by another thirty one individuals, mostly situationists.
Indictment of Uwe Lausen, a minor at the time, for contempt of court.

This chronology has been adapted and expanded from Jean-Jacques Raspaud and Jean-Pierre Voyer, L'Internationale Situationniste: Chronologie, bibliographie, protagonistes (avec un index des noms insulté) (Paris: Champ Libre, 1972); Christophe Bourseiller, Vie et mort de Guy Debord (Paris: Plon, 1999); and Guy Debord, Correspondance (volumes 1, 2 & 3) (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1999 , 2001 & 2003).