Ethical militancy : the workings of aesthetics / Natascha Siouzouli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Siouzouli, Natascha, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aesthetics--Philosophy.

Aesthetics.

Ethics--Philosophy.

Ethics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (152 pages)

Place of Publication:

Berlin : Neofelis, [2022]

Summary:

In recent years, much research has been dedicated to the relationship between politics and aesthetics and, in particular, to the political power of aesthetics. This book makes a claim for what comes before any political decision is made and action taken; for what precedes the need for the subject to take a specific stance and adopt a particular (political) attitude. It interprets the "in-between space of aesthetics" (Erika Fischer-Lichte), where production and reception have traditionally met, as a topos within which "action itself is called into question" (Joseph Vogl). This is a space where aesthetics and ethics converge to trouble affirmations and beliefs, and to challenge the subject.By looking at recent theatrical performances and workshops put on mainly in Athens, Greece, and/or created by Greek artists (Nova Melancholia, Rimini Protokoll, Michael Marmarinos, Theodoros Terzopoulos etc.), this book explores the conditions in which it is possible or necessary for the ethical to emerge in aesthetic contexts. It tracks down the metamorphoses of the ethical and its manifestations in situations of aesthetic unsettling, and reveals hidden ethical paradigms in aesthetic articulations. Furthermore, it focuses on the specific way in which the position of the (ethico-political) subject is articulated within those conditions, arguing that it is impossible for the subject to remain intact once it has entered the ethico-aesthetic space. It asserts that a catastrophe is required, the loss and the vanishing of the subject, in order to reinstate responsibility, to respect the ethicality of time, and to obtain justice; and advocates for the rise of the object, allowing for an unfamiliar political discourse to take the stage.

Contents:

Cover

Halftitle

Title Page

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Ethics and aesthetics

Critique and the political

Ambiguity and excess

Partisan truth

What this book is about: Preliminary thoughts on an aesthetico-ethical militancy

I Repetition as Ethos, or How do we repeat?

Performance #1: Κακορίζικη (Kakoriziki

The Ill-fated)

Performance #2: Lyricism

Performance #3: Evros Walk Water

The space of the ethical

Performance #4: Omonoia - The Shape of Circle

II Exodus

The dream

The zombies / the beyond

The farewell

Melancholy in the desert

III Time and the Ethical

The workshop

The city

The stillness / the ritual

The strategy

Aesthetics and the ethical: Time

The ethics of time

An epilogue

IV Playing with History - The Quest for Justice

Birds and revolution: Nova Melancholia's Imagine a Heroic Landscape

The labyrinth: Nova Melancholia's Walter Benjamin: On the Concept of History

Justice and the ordinary

V The Banality of Good - Truth and the Theater

Reality, truth and the theater

Experience

The personal story

Authenticity

Emotionality and understanding

Ethical banality

Aesthetico-Ethical Militancy and the Disappearance of the Subject

What does it mean to be militant in aesthetico-ethical terms?

On militancy and melancholy

Can the subject disappear?

Militant aesthetics

The shadow of ethics and the political, or the defeat of the subject: A conclusion

Bibliography

List of Performances

List of Figures

Colophon

Backcover.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Siouzouli, Natascha Ethical Militancy

ISBN:

9783958083967