Guy Debord's Game of War

Guy Debord is known for having been a poet, filmmaker, artist, revolutionary theorist, magazine director and founder of movements. avant-garde. But above all, he was a strategist. What do we mean by that? That he used poetry, film, theory and the avant-garde in conflict with the society of his time. One object in particular in Guy Debord's production meets this objective: the War Game, which was intended to sharpen the strategic sense and the awareness of a struggle to be waged. In the mid-1950s, Debord designed a game consisting of a grid board and pawns representing the various units of an army. As a model of war, this game participates in situationist research on the built environment, alienated life and the means to emancipate oneself from it. At a time when design tends to invade discourse and encompass more and more fields of creative, technical, social and economic activity, and while art continues to rethink the conditions of its critical validity, Emmanuel Guy offers here a reflection on the role of strategy in any emancipation project. Emmanuel Guy