Invisible Forces at Furtherfield Gallery

“The vital question before us is how to cut the chains of misery that still bind the hands of Toussaint’s descendants and those worldwide trapped in poverty. Toussaint’s fierce opposition to slavery, his leadership skills, his freedom-inspired writings and the constitution he drafted bequeath to us all a strategy for opposing injustice. This example tells us that discipline is part of the equation.” – Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Saturday 16th June – Saturday 11th August 2012.
Open Thursday-Friday 2.00-6.00pm, Saturday 11.00am-6.00pm

Furtherfield Gallery,
McKenzie Pavilion,
Finsbury Park,
London, N4 2NQ

Class Wargames is taking part in the Invisible Forces exhibition at the Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park, London. This show includes both our new video Class Wargames Interviews Kimathi Donkor and his inspirational painting of the leader of 1791 Haitian Revolution: Toussaint L’Ouverture at Bedourete.

Special Events

Launch Party

Saturday 16th June
1.00pm-5.00pm

Picnic and Subversion

Saturday 23rd June
1.00pm-5.00pm
Talk: Kimathi Donkor
Xenography: Alex Veness
Game: Guy Debord’s The Game of War

Picnic and Subversion

Saturday 30th June
1.00pm-5.00pm
Talk: Richard Barbrook & Fabian Tompsett
Game: 1791 Haitian Revolution version of Richard Borg’s Command & Colors Napoleonics.

Games People Play at the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World

“Its principle of reciprocal rights, its diplomatic forms, its mutual obligations in honouring treaties and, in the event of war, officially abrogating peace, all bear a formal resemblance to rules of a game. We might in a purely formal sense, call all of human society a game.” – Johan Huizinga

Friday 6th April – Sunday 30th September 2012
10.00am – 5.00pm, Tuesdays to Sundays and all Bank Holidays.

Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World,
Haldon Forest Park,
Exeter EX6 7XR

+44 (0)1392 832277

Download the CCANW Spring/Summer brochure

Class Wargames will be participating in Games People Play at the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World in Exeter, Engand. This exhibition will include Guy Debord’s The Game of War; H.G. Wells’ Little Wars; and a continuous loop of our film: Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War.

Special Events

Collective Playing of Guy Debord’s The Game of War
Saturday 18th August
7.00pm-9.00pm
Admission £3 Booking advisable
Refreshments

Collective Playing of H.G. Wells’ Little Wars
Sunday 19th August
2.00pm-4.00pm
Admission £3 Children free Booking advisable
Refreshments

Takako Saito’s Liquor Chess meets Guy Debord’s The Game of War

“The main product which economic development has transformed from luxurious scarcity to daily consumption is history, but only in the form of the history of the abstract movement of things that dominates all qualitative use of life. The revolutionary project is the realisation of a generalised historical life: the classless society.” – Guy Debord

Friday 2nd December
18.30-21.00

RayLab,
344 Kingsland Road,
LONDON E8 4DA

Following its successful screenings in St Petersburg, Moscow and Irkutsk, the Russian version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War will publicly shown in London for the first time. In homage to the Fluxus artist Takako Saito’s Liquid Chess set, the film show will be followed by a collective playing of Debord’s game with vodka glasses as pieces.

Entrance: free

Class Wargames at Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

“Art need no longer be an account of past sensations. It can become the direct organization of more highly evolved sensations. It is a question of producing ourselves, not things that enslave us.” – Guy Debord

Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Ul. Galernaya 58-60
St Petersburg, Russia

Thursday, 17th November
18:30-20:00

Stefan Lutschinger will be reflecting on Class Wargames’ Transsiberian Summer Campaign and introducing a screening and discussion of the new Russian language version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War which was partly filmed at the Russian State Hermitage Museum.

The seminar is part of the ‘Discussions on Arts and Eclectics’ series and open to the interested public.

Play the Revolution!

“Merit consists of the winning of the game according to the rules of permissable play. There may be great doubt as to how to win the game, but no doubt over whether it has been won or lost.”
Norbert Wiener, God & Golem, Inc.

Monday 21st November
7.00pm
DrinkShop&Do
9 Caledonian Road
London N1 9DX

The Ludic Science Club meets to play and study games and simulations with political, economic and social themes.

The featured games for this week will be:
Drakes, Jarvis, Walsh, and Gluck, Election:
John Loughrey, Democracy:

Entrance: free

Ludic Science Club is supported by:
Resonance FM
Class Wargames
Cybersalon
Compass Youth
Furtherfield
Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster

The Clash of Arms at Wrocław

“The Poles are internationalists of the very best kind if they are very nationalistic. They have understood this in all crises and have proved it on the battlefields of all revolutions.”

Friedrich Engels, Nationalism, Internationalism and the Polish Question.

Thursday 8th September – Saturday 10th September
Wrocław Galerie Sztuki Współczesnej
ul. Wita Stwosza 32
50 – 149 Wrocław
Poland

Class Wargames will be appearing in the Tomorrow Never Dies exhibition as part of the European Culture Congress in Wrocław, Poland. This exhibition will include a continuous loop of the Polish subtitled version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War and the collective playing of Guy Debord’s The Game of War on Saturday lunchtime.

Associated Events

Exhibition Opening
Thursday 8th September
6.30pm

Collective Playing of Guy Debord’s The Game of War
Saturday 10th September
12.00pm

Guy Debord’s The Game of War meets McKenzie Wark’s The Beach Beneath the Street

“In [The] Game of War, history is made mobile again, in an irreversible time where strategy can reverse the course of events.”

McKenzie Wark, 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situtationist International

Public Reading Rooms,
Housmans,
5 Caledonian Road,
King’s Cross,
London N1 9DX.

Wednesday 24th August,
3.00pm onwards.

McKenzie Wark will be playing The Game of War with members of Class Wargames at Housmans to celebrate the launch of his new book: The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International. While manoeuvring for maximum advantage on the ludic battlefield, we will be discussing how the political and artistic insights of Situationism can be used to subvert spectacular capitalism in the 21st century.

Guy Debord’s The Game of War meets Victor Pelevin’s Chapayev and Void

“- It was a psychogeographical map, not a deployment plan. And there were no potatoes, but onions.
- Onions?
- Yes, onions. Although for personal reasons I would have preferred potatoes.”

Victor Pelevin, Chapayev and Void

Galereya Revolutsiya
ul. Karla Marksa 40 (Karl Marx Street 40)
Irkutsk
Russia

Wednesday, 27th July
19:00-22:00

Co-organised by Theory & Practice, Irkutsk

Stefan Lutschinger will be introducing a screening and discussion of the new Russian language version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War which was partly filmed at the Russian State Hermitage Museum.

After watching this movie, we shall collectively model the key scene of Victor Pelevin’s masterpiece Chapayev and Void as a ludic sculpture and play Guy Debord’s The Game of War with red and white onions.

“Let us go ahead – Chapayev said. – There are maps of the area. And this table – is a simplified map of consciousness. Those are red. And these are white. But is that so that when we percive the reds and the whites we get their colour? And what is there in us that can get this colour?”

Victor Pelevin, Chapayev and Void

Takako Saito’s Liquor Chess meets Guy Debord’s The Game of War

“Although I have read a lot, I have drunk even more. I have written much less than most people who write, but I have drunk more than most people who drink.”

Guy Debord

Tsiolkovsky bookstore
State Polytechnical Museum
3/4 Novaya Square, Doorway № 1
Moscow
Russia

Metro: Lubyanka

Saturday, 2nd July
19:00-22:00

Stefan Lutschinger will be introducing a screening and discussion of the new Russian language version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War which was partly filmed at the Russian State Hermitage Museum.

After watching this movie, we shall affectionately recreate Takako Saito’s Liquor Chess as Guy Debord’s The Game of War. Reds play shotglasses filled with Vodka Mors (Russian cranberry juice), Whites play Vodka Lemon.

Chess is the cradle of wargames, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever!

Film launch: Russian language version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game Of War

Vse Svobodny
Moika Embankment 28
St Petersburg, Russia

Saturday, 25th June
15:00 – 19:00

Stefan Lutschinger will be introducing a screening and discussion of the new Russian language version of Class Wargames Presents Guy Debord’s The Game of War which was partly filmed at the Russian State Hermitage Museum.

After watching this movie, we shall get our hands dirty: Following Chapayev’s example, we will build our own DIY version of The Game of War from potatoes. By playfully competing against each other over its board, we will study the strategic and tactical skills required to survive under spectacular capitalism.

Programme

15:00-17:00 Figurine Design Workshop
17:00-18:00 Film Screening & Discussion
18:00-19:00 Guy Debord’s The Game of War & potato chips

Tip: Watch the English subtitled version of the Soviet classic Chapayev (1934) on Youtube and download Chapayev the Game for iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

Play the revolution!