The radical French philosopher Guy Debord popularized the practice of detournement, or the ruthless re-working of an existing artwork for the detourner's own ends. In his book
Precarious Communism: Manifest Mutations, Manifesto Detourned,
Richard Gilman-Opalsky reconfigures Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto -- a reaction against the Industrial Revolution -- into a rallying cry for civic action in the era of digital-content production. Both an expose of the original text's failures and a celebration of its spirit of mass change brought about by the masses, Gilman-Opalsky connects his theories of revolution to Ferguson Summer. He reads from and discusses
Precarious Communism today at Left Bank Books.
3 p.m. Sun., Mar. 29. Left Bank Books (399 North Euclid Avenue; 314-967-7487 or www.left-bank.com). Free admission.
Sun., March 29, 3 p.m., 2015