ABSTRACT

This chapter follows the dissolution of the Subversive Aktion network and the founding of the groups Viva Maria and Kommune I. Neither of these groups entertained a utopian vision of uniting art and society. But they did apply the concepts of play and the festivity of the everyday to broaden the notion of the political. They also returned to the issue of sexual liberation, which was intensively explored during the early period of communal living. The experiment was unable to undo hierarchical relationships, however – particularly divisions between men and women. When sexual liberation failed to deliver the desired outcomes, the members of Kommune I chose to become the spectacle itself. They put their lives on display as a form of political action and a kind of total work of art. The experiment was short-lived. By 1969, Kommune I was splintering in the face of escalating violence just as the broader coalition of the New Left separated into political factions and underground cells.