How did art escape the deadlock of the Situationists’ anti-art refusal? Did the relational artists, with their repetitions of Situationist slogans and techniques, outline a sustainable, micro-political alternative to Guy Debord’s dream of surpassing art and realizing philosophy? Looking back at some of the Situationists’ confrontations with the museum, this book traces a path beyond the tragedy of negativity and the litany of recuperation. At the center is the concept of play; originally adopted as the principle of reconciled life, it returns as the lever of instrumentalization. But in the extraterrestial wasteland of the present, spaces of ludic coexistence and experimentation may remain possible, provided that pessimism can be adequately organized.