Performance Philosophy (E-Journal)
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Immanenz: Ein Leben … Friedrich Nietzsche
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Im ersten Teil verhandelt der Text Nietzsches These, dass transzendente Interpretationen des Lebens in einer verborgenen Aggression lebendiger Organismen gegen das Leben als solches basieren. Nietzsche war vermutlich der Erste, der davon ausging, dass „metaphysische Annahmen“ in einem falschen Bild des Denkens gründen, das nicht zufällig, sondern konstitutiv den Blick auf unsere Instinkttätigkeiten verdrängt, die in den Souterrains unserer Leiblichkeit am Werk sind.
Um zu begreifen, was für Nietzsche im Problem „Transzendenz versus Immanenz“ auf dem Spiel steht, muss man daher sein neues Konzept des Körpers untersuchen. Körper werden von ihm nicht mehr als massive, an sich seiende Dinge gedacht, sondern als weltweit exponierte Entitäten, die einer Vielheit von Kräften ausgesetzt sind. Einerseits den Kräften, die in den Souterrains der Leiblichkeit mehr oder weniger unbewusst am Werk sind, andererseits den Kräften, die Körper in ihrem In-der-Welt-sein von außen her weltweit affizieren.
Im zweiten Teil wird das Forschungsfestival Philosophy On Stage#4. Nietzsche et cetera (Tanzquartier Wien 2015) als Beispiel eines kunst-basierten Philosophierens analysiert, das der Philosophie ihre Leiblichkeit, Materialität und Sinnlichkeit zurückgibt, indem es den Akt des Philosophierens auf der Bühne ausstellt und damit leiblich exponiert. Eine philosophische Denkungsart, die für Nietzsche in Opposition zum klassisch asketischen Bild des Denkens steht und daher einer neuen Gattung von Künstlerphilosoph_innen bedarf, die bereit und willens sind, mit Nietzsches Zarathustra zu fordern: „bleibt der Erde treu“.
English:
I will argue in this text that the very foundation of a transcendent interpretation of life is based on a hidden aggression of living beings against life itself. Nietzsche was probably the first who discovered the fact that “metaphysical believes” are finally grounded in a false image of thought, which avoids––not arbitrarily, but constitutively––to have a close look at the instinctive activities, operative in a body.
In order to understand what is finally at stake for Nietzsche in the problem transcendence versus immanence, one therefore has to understand his new concept of the body. The body, not as a massive thing in itself, but a worldwide being, exposed to a multitude of forces, subconsciously operative in the cellar regions of a body as well as in the worldwide affections, a body is exposed to in its being-in-the-world.
In the second part of my paper I will address the research-festival Philosophy on Stage#4, Nietzsche et cetera (Tanzquartier Wien 2015) as an example, in which philosophy is realized as an artistic research practice that gives back to philosophy its corporeality, materiality and fleshly sensibility by staging philosophy. A way of philosophising, which counters the classical ascetic image of thought and thus demands a new species of “artist-philosophers,” able and willing to demand, in line with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, to “stay true to the earth”
Nietzsche’s Dionysos
Get PDFNietzsche’s Dionysus, admittedly, represents a direct provocation and an attack on the classical interpretation accepted since Winckelmann, an interpretation that elevates the Apollonian to its central point of focus; Nietzsche’s introduction of another principle to oppose it, rather than representing a genuine invention, in actuality bridges the small gap between Hegel and Hölderlin. If, namely, the Hegelian aesthetic from the very beginning points to Schein and Erscheinung – as necessary conditions of truth, for the truth would not exist if it were not to “superficially appear” (scheinen) and “make its appearance” (erscheinen), writes Hegel – Schein and Erscheinung would still nonetheless be bound up everywhere with the criterium of the absolute; after all, the untruth of the aesthetic rests squarely in the fact that it cannot do other than to draw upon the language of Erscheinung. For Hölderlin, on the other hand, the Dionysian advances to become a metapoetic symbol combining itself – the enigmatic and continually transforming – with the practice of art. Nietzsche follows those very same lines even while giving the metaphor a thoroughly different twist
Robotic Performance: An Ecology of Response
Get PDFThis article looks into regions of human-robotic and inter-robotic relations in performance. Artwork presenting inter-machine and human-machine entanglements in robotic performance requires attention: it addresses recent concerns with the crisis of ‘the obsolete body’, yet also calls for acritique of what constitutes a response. The present article works toward a concept of response that simultaneously reinstates the status of automata as counterparts to ‘humans’ and invites biological bodies to reassess their place in a world. Herein notions of interaction, empathetic immersion, and machine personhood intertwine to shape a new ecology of bodies. Robotic performance thus drafts out an immersive ontology of bodiesto raise questions that are mostly ecological. It allows us to look into practices that put on display the border between an organism and an environment, prompting us to think toward the dissolution of that border into a network of co-determinative systems
Philosophy as Verse-Performance: five poems and a formalist prospectus
Get PDFThis article consists of five poems and an introductory essay. The poems are intended on the one hand to make a case for the currently underrated virtues of poetic formalism, i.e., for the revival of rhyme and meter as aspects of poetic practice. On the other they argue for a distinctly philosophical mode of poetry that embraces the values of conceptual or rational discourse as against a romantic-modernist conception premised on the intrinsic superiority of lyric, metaphor, symbol, analogy, and suchlike touchstone values. These issues are laid out programmatically in the opening essay and developed in a more performative as well as formal way in the five poems.
Immanence: A life… Friedrich Nietzsche
Get PDFI will argue in this text that the very foundation of a transcendent interpretation of life is based on a hidden aggression of living beings against life itself. Nietzsche was probably the first who discovered the fact that “metaphysical believes” are finally grounded in a false image of thought, which avoids––not arbitrarily, but constitutively––to have a close look at the instinctive activities, operative in a body.In order to understand what is finally at stake for Nietzsche in the problem transcendence versus immanence, one therefore has to understand his new concept of the body. The body, not as a massive thing in itself, but a worldwide being, exposed to a multitude of forces, subconsciously operative in the cellar regions of a body as well as in the worldwide affections, a body is exposed to in its being-in-the-world.In the second part of my paper I will address the research-festival Philosophy on Stage#4, Nietzsche et cetera (Tanzquartier Wien 2015) as an example, in which philosophy is realized as an artistic research practice that gives back to philosophy its corporeality, materiality and fleshly sensibility by staging philosophy. A way of philosophising, which counters the classical ascetic image of thought and thus demands a new species of “artist-philosophers,” able and willing to demand, in line with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, to “stay true to the earth”
Die Gleichsetzung von Theater und Philosophie: Laruelle, Badiou & Gesten der Autorität in der Philosophie des Theaters
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In diesem Artikel werde ich François Laruelles Begriff der ‚Non-Standard‘ Ästhetik untersuchen, um eine kritische Perspektive auf Alain Badious vielfältige Äußerungen über die Philosophie des Theaters zu entwickeln. Während es zunächst so erscheint, als ob Badiou in Werken wie In Praise of Theatre (2015) aufgeschlossen gegenüber dem eigenen Denken des Theaters wäre und tatsächlich die Funktion der Philosophie im Verhältnis zu einem ontologischen Privileg zurückzustufen würde, das (von ihm) nun der Mengentheorie zugesprochen wird, werde ich aufzeigen, dass eben dieses Wohlwollen, aus einer Laruellschen Perspektive, eine andere Form von philosophischem Authoritarismus konstituiert. Das heißt, während Badiu bekanntermaßen das Theater als „ein Ereignis des Denkens“ beschreibt, „das direkt Ideen hervorbringt“ (Badiou 2009, 121), wird dieser Text von Laruelle ausgehend argumentieren, dass Badiou sich zuletzt als Autorität über das positioniert, was als Theater im „eigentlichen Sinne“ gilt (vgl. Badiou 2015, 72); sein eigenes Denken in performativer Weise als normative Ausnahme und als Türhüter dieser Ausnahme festlegt.
English:
In this article I engage François Laruelle’s notion of ‘non-standard’ aesthetics to provide a critical perspective on Alain Badiou’s various pronouncements on the philosophy of theatre. Whilst in works such as In Praise of Theatre (2015), Badiou initially appears magnanimous in relation to theatre’s own thinking, and indeed to demote the function of philosophy in relation to an ontological privilege now accorded (by him) to set theory, I will argue that this very benevolence, from a Laruellian perspective, constitutes another form of philosophical authoritarianism. That is, whilst Badiou famously describes theatre as ‘an event of thought’ that ‘directly produces ideas’ (Badiou 2005a, 72), this article draws from Laruelle to suggest that he ultimately positions himself as the authority on what ‘counts as theatre properly speaking’ (Badiou 2013, 109); performatively positioning his own thought as normative exception and as the gatekeeper to that exception
Dance, Philosophy, and Somaesthetics
Get PDFThis essay examines the question whether dance can do philosophy by considering the manner in which dance processes used in the studio can advance philosophical investigations of human embodiment. Two contemporary improvisation techniques are discussed, Gaga technique developed by Ohad Naharin and Contact Improvisation developed by Steve Paxton
Work(s) and (Non)production in Contemporary Movement Practices
Get PDFThis paper considers how the presentation of movement practices in performance contexts blurs the distinction between making and performance, raising questions about the nature of dance ‘works’. I examine the way that practice is foregrounded in the work of UK dance artists Katye Coe and Charlie Morrissey, and American choreographer Deborah Hay, troubling distinctions between the internal and external aspects of performance. In response to this, I examine the applicability of the work–concept (Goehr 1992), to current dance practices, suggesting that the concept is an open one and refers not solely to stable art objects, but also indicates open-ended entities, which are formed through a confluence of practice and performance
The Panacousticon: By Way of Echo to Freddie Rokem
Get PDFThe impulse for this essay came about as a direct reaction to reading Freddie Rokem’s contribution in Volume 1 of this journal. Whereas Rokem refers to eavesdropping scenes in plays and philosophical discourse, I shall examine this act within the context of an acoustic mechanical theatre invented by philosopher Athanasius Kircher in the 1600s.The Panacousticon was a system of spiral-shaped funnels hidden within walls that were operated as amplifiers, connecting public spaces to the eavesdropper via ‘talking heads’ or stone busts. An audience witnessing the deeds of Polonius or Orgon in classical theatre was replaced by an auditor of unseen ‘performers’ in the act of conversing. The ‘closet’ in Hamlet was replaced by a stone bust with gaping mouth. Furthermore, Rokem’s discussion of the supernatural as an eavesdropping presence in the same play, finds an echo in Kircher’s acoustic theatre, where the talking busts began to speak as people passed by, creating an uncanny mise-en-scèneof omnipresence.Whilst Kircher performed his conceptual creations through theatrical techniques, his actor-audience was subject to the sonic address of an unknown source. With passing references to natural magic, ventriloquism and automata I shall discuss the convergences that occur between these two perspectives of performer / audience
Wittgenstein\u27s Slapstick
Get PDFIn “Performance Philosophy — Staging a New Field,” Laura Cull approaches performance as a source of philosophical insight and philosophy as a species of performance (Cull 2014, 15). This calls for a radical transformation of philosophy and its practices. What form might this take? Wittgenstein’s later philosophy provides one example. The language games presented in the opening remarks of the Philosophical Investigations (PI, [1953] 2001) are meant to be played out. They involve improvisation based on general scenes, stock characters, and linguistic play. When enacted, they are slapstick. As such, they offer a method of philosophical investigation in which clarity and insight are inherent in the performance itself. Wittgenstein’s language games were directly influenced by the subversive practices of Austrian commedia dell’arte and slapstick (through the works of Johann Nestroy and Karl Kraus). By their very nature, they challenge the pretensions of philosophical explanation and theory. Unlike attempts to compare Wittgenstein’s philosophy to theatre, enacting language games is a form of philosophical performance. Andrew Lugg notes that recent attempts to compare Wittgenstein’s philosophy to theatre problematize the opening remarks of the Investigations. However, enacting language games as a form of philosophical performance makes what is hidden, in all of its simplicity and familiarity, obvious, striking, and engaging