Page 93 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 93
counter-identification and politics of art
tent, which is inscribed in it. Still, as Benjamin remarks in the next sen-
tence, the theory “(...) must do justice to these relationships, for they lead
us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechan-
ical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical depend-
ence on ritual” (Ibid.). Not only by the turn from spectator to creator art
“leaves behind the neutral horizon”, but it also becomes involved in the so-
cial context as it produces signifiers, which are in the last instance politi-
cal, since in any form or whichever presentations they unavoidably address
the public. And the public, as a phenomenon of the bourgeois era, when the
notion of society designates a formation, which had left behind a “phase”
of organic community, has always been targeted by politics and vice ver-
sa. The very word “politics” invokes meanings like power, domination, and
nation and of course, as also Benjamin points out, war. However, there are
also many other aspects of politics, especially when we take into account
some categories of social dynamics like economics, development, emanci-
pation, redistribution, welfare, equality, community, freedom, population,
and let us not forget biology. The bio-politics as it was conceptualised by
Michel Foucault3 is, for instance, reflected in the modern and postmodern
art by representations of the body in various kinds and genres of art: from
theatre performances to gallery installations. Well, one must accept that
back in history perceptions of art (and of reality in general for that matter)
were different, although we cannot know exactly what the authentic (“au-
ratic” in Benjamin’s terms) perception of the art has had been. However, we
know the reason about the difference, which happened to be a product of
many interacting developments, involving notions such as society, technol-
ogy, history and revolution.
What kind of politics does art really represents? The answer to this,
not just a rhetorical question, cannot be simple since art is – no matter how
very special – a political agency; sometimes it mimics politics, sometimes it
succumbs to a dispute with it, and of course, it likes to mock politics. There-
fore, it seems almost impossible to grasp all the complexity of the relation
between art and politics. Undoubtedly, politics produces a social space for
art in many imaginable ways, and probably the bulk of art is being (re)pro-
duced in a rather active collaboration or at least in an attitude of pretence
or forthright neutrality towards politics. One just has to think about all the
music played in the settings of a semblance of a ritual, canonised theatre
3 See a number of Foucault‘s lectures, published in: Foucault Michel (1997). Il faut
défendre la société. Paris: Seuil/Gallimard
91
tent, which is inscribed in it. Still, as Benjamin remarks in the next sen-
tence, the theory “(...) must do justice to these relationships, for they lead
us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechan-
ical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical depend-
ence on ritual” (Ibid.). Not only by the turn from spectator to creator art
“leaves behind the neutral horizon”, but it also becomes involved in the so-
cial context as it produces signifiers, which are in the last instance politi-
cal, since in any form or whichever presentations they unavoidably address
the public. And the public, as a phenomenon of the bourgeois era, when the
notion of society designates a formation, which had left behind a “phase”
of organic community, has always been targeted by politics and vice ver-
sa. The very word “politics” invokes meanings like power, domination, and
nation and of course, as also Benjamin points out, war. However, there are
also many other aspects of politics, especially when we take into account
some categories of social dynamics like economics, development, emanci-
pation, redistribution, welfare, equality, community, freedom, population,
and let us not forget biology. The bio-politics as it was conceptualised by
Michel Foucault3 is, for instance, reflected in the modern and postmodern
art by representations of the body in various kinds and genres of art: from
theatre performances to gallery installations. Well, one must accept that
back in history perceptions of art (and of reality in general for that matter)
were different, although we cannot know exactly what the authentic (“au-
ratic” in Benjamin’s terms) perception of the art has had been. However, we
know the reason about the difference, which happened to be a product of
many interacting developments, involving notions such as society, technol-
ogy, history and revolution.
What kind of politics does art really represents? The answer to this,
not just a rhetorical question, cannot be simple since art is – no matter how
very special – a political agency; sometimes it mimics politics, sometimes it
succumbs to a dispute with it, and of course, it likes to mock politics. There-
fore, it seems almost impossible to grasp all the complexity of the relation
between art and politics. Undoubtedly, politics produces a social space for
art in many imaginable ways, and probably the bulk of art is being (re)pro-
duced in a rather active collaboration or at least in an attitude of pretence
or forthright neutrality towards politics. One just has to think about all the
music played in the settings of a semblance of a ritual, canonised theatre
3 See a number of Foucault‘s lectures, published in: Foucault Michel (1997). Il faut
défendre la société. Paris: Seuil/Gallimard
91
