Project sigma: the temporality of activism

This chapter focuses on sigma, a network of cultural practitioners that was active roughly between 1963–1965. This highly ambitious project involved a network of writers, artists, scientists and psychiatrists, including William Burroughs, Jeff Nuttall and R.D. Laing. Its successes were modest: the most tangible outcome of the project was the sigma portfolio, an expanding, self-published collection of texts (Trocchi, 1964), ‘part manifesto, part manual’ for art activism (Wark, 2011 : 126). Its initiator and convener was Alexander Trocchi, the Scottish novelist, poet, Situationist and drug addict. The intention of the text is to present a close reading of sigma essays to explore the unfolding of an art activist logic within the programmatic texts of the portfolio.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Cultures of violence. Visual arts and political violence on 16/04/2020, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138624917 or http://www.crcpress.com/9780429460357