Technology was already an analysis and reconstruction of perception, already an artificial perception […] Let us extend this experience in the form of an experiment within a matrix that imitates the photographic apparatus and what it hides or houses within its entrails, an experimental dispositive of the transformation of the most intellectual of perceptions that must abandon its machinery and determinism. François Laruelle 2 Benjamin's claim that modern technologies reveal the poverty of the conventional notion of experience, and thus initiate a new kind barbarism, appears at first sight to be a negative judgement of the effects of modern life. However, he uses the term 'barbarism' to indicate a new, positive, concept, proposing that the 'poverty of experience' does something productive for the barbarian: It forces him to start from scratch; to make a new start; […] Among the great creative spirits, there have always been the ones who begin by clearing a tabula rasa. They need a drawing table; they were constructors. 3 Benjamin cites philosophers (Descartes), scientists (Albert Einstein), avant-garde artists (the Cubists, Paul Klee) and science-fiction writers (Paul Scheerbart) as taking such 'barbaric' approaches to their respective creative practices, indicating that poverty of experience can yield constructive results across diverse regions of knowledge production. This article seeks to add another name to this list-that of François Laruelle-and to explore the ways in which Laruelle's contemporary experiments in 'non-philosophical' or 'non-standard' thinking similarly constitute a levelling of the grounds of thought which radicalizes experience, and resonate with Benjamin's own ideas about experience and technology. Laruelle characterizes his theoretical stance as a 'heresy' in relation to standard philosophy, and it perhaps seems 'barbaric' to some; 4 indeed, Jacques Derrida suggests that Laruelle's unorthodox method holds what appears as a kind of 'terror' over philosophy. 5 However, the ultimate aim of Laruelle's heresy is to introduce a radical democracy into thinking, setting philosophical concepts into a broader paradigm by supposing the equality of all genres of thought. Here, I will argue that non-philosophy can thus be understood as an example of the positive barbarism that Benjamin calls for.
François Laruelle’s non-standard aesthetics proposes a framework for ‘conjugating’ philosophy with the arts to articulate new models of thought (2012a). This posture of thinking is posed as a defence of man against the presuppositions that ground philosophy, which conceptually overdetermine the human and condemn thought to a perpetual state of crisis (Gracieuse et al. 2012). Laruelle’s epistemological approach holds a certain potential for the field of performance philosophy because it brings performance together with philosophy in a non-hierarchical arrangement that combines their respective means, producing an ‘art of thought’ (Laruelle 2012a, 5). This article examines the effects of bringing performance into thought in this manner, by putting Laruelle’s pragmatics into practice. It enacts a non-standard re-description of two sets of theoretical materials: one ‘philosophical’, the other from ‘performance theory’. The first, a deconstruction of the performativity of human rights declarations (Hamacher 2006), resonates with Laruelle’s concerns about the conceptual overdetermination of the human; however, it appeals to the Platonic scene of krisis as an alternative paradigm for presenting the human—which remains an event with a crisis-structure. The second, an aesthetic theory of performance conceived as a liminal event (Fischer-Lichte 2008), has a similar structure. By articulating these materials together, I will show how terms can be extracted from performance theory and used as a means to radicalise the scene of krisis, producing a stage on which the ‘human’ can be presented in an underdetermined mode. This allows us to achieve a non-predicative theorisation of the human that eludes Hamacher, whilst demonstrating through practice the abstract procedure by which ‘performance’ is utilised in the context of non-standard aesthetics.
ACT Oedipus: Digital theatre and the apocalyptic structure of re/ presentation Apocalyptic Cybernetic Theatre: ACT Oedipus is a digital theatre piece by Studio for Electronic Theatre that was performed at Tate Britain in November 2011 as part of an evening themed around the Apocalypse. The work re-imagines the Oedipus myth in a virtual reality environment. I use the term 'digital theatre' to refer to theatrical works that involve a combination of live physical performance and audio-visual media; particularly (and most relevant to this discussion) the use of cameras to generate visual material as part of the performance process. The piece I am using as an example includes projections of digital images -some prepared in advance and some taken in real time from the live performance -which create an effect of doubling the action. This simultaneous presentation of solid bodies and projected images highlights both similarities and differences between them. The digital technology allows for the images to be manipulated in various ways, and for multiple perspectives to be presented in the same space and time.In this consideration of the digital in theatre, I am not claiming to be able to move 'beyond representation' as such. However, given that the theatre in its classical Greek form has served as a
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