This dissertation engages a very general question: what matters politically? This question is characterized as a point of heresy, as a site through which different political stances differentiate themselves from one another and account for their differences. Building on the concept of aesthetics of politics developed by Jacques Rancière, I seek to free up this concept’s critical and analytical potential by arguing that different aesthetics of politics act as prerequisites to divergent determinations of political importance. More precisely, I argue that significant formulations of how variations in distributions of political importance occur tend to presuppose particular accounts of the relationships between perception and interpretation, sensibility and understanding, or how we sense and how we make sense. While the concept of aesthetics is tied to particular histories of what has been called Western Modernity, I argue that Western political thought has been characterized by a deep concern for questions of perception since its allegedly inaugural texts in Classical Greece, and that the so-called postmodern condition continues to put into play aesthetic terms of political engagement. To test this hypothesis positing that we always already think of politics aesthetically, I map five influential aesthetics of politics: aesthetics of prevalence, aesthetics of emancipation, aesthetics of temperament, aesthetics of friction, and aesthetics of endurance. Each one is already manifold. To make sense of these multiplicities, each aesthetics of politics is studied through a fourfold engagement with the politics of one of the senses of the age-old fivefold of sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell. The politics of each sense are engaged along a politological, an artistico-political, a polemological and a hauntological folds. I am thereby able to show the intricacies of how the problem of political importance has been and is being dealt with. / Graduate / 0615 / simonlab@uvic.ca

This dissertation engages a very general question: what matters politically? This question is characterized as a point of heresy, as a site through which different political stances differentiate themselves from one another and account for their differences. Building on the concept of aesthetics of politics developed by Jacques Rancière, I seek to free up this concept’s critical and analytical potential by arguing that different aesthetics of politics act as prerequisites to divergent determinations of political importance. More precisely, I argue that significant formulations of how variations in distributions of political importance occur tend to presuppose particular accounts of the relationships between perception and interpretation, sensibility and understanding, or how we sense and how we make sense. While the concept of aesthetics is tied to particular histories of what has been called Western Modernity, I argue that Western political thought has been characterized by a deep concern for questions of perception since its allegedly inaugural texts in Classical Greece, and that the so-called postmodern condition continues to put into play aesthetic terms of political engagement. To test this hypothesis positing that we always already think of politics aesthetically, I map five influential aesthetics of politics: aesthetics of prevalence, aesthetics of emancipation, aesthetics of temperament, aesthetics of friction, and aesthetics of endurance. Each one is already manifold. To make sense of these multiplicities, each aesthetics of politics is studied through a fourfold engagement with the politics of one of the senses of the age-old fivefold of sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell. The politics of each sense are engaged along a politological, an artistico-political, a polemological and a hauntological folds. I am thereby able to show the intricacies of how the problem of political importance has been and is being dealt with. / Graduate / 0615 / simonlab@uvic.ca

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 1979. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-243) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 1979. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-243) and index.

<p>An inquiry into the post-war European aesthetic and political landscape should take the international organization Unesco’s colour reproductions and travelling exhibitions of paintings into consideration. In these, the organization implements André Malraux’ idea of the “imaginary museum” as a framework for a future cosmopolitical, aesthetic (and utopian) community. During the late 1940’s, the Swedish government also discusses the need for raising an “aesthetic awareness” amongst their citizens as a consequence to a poor knowledge in the fine arts. In short, there is a poor developed sensibility amongst the Swedish people. An aesthetic (re)shaping has political consequences since it concerns the sensibility of the political subject and his or hers ability to partake in a political order. The issue at hand is how these re-shapings are constituted and further developed, i.e. how these create new ways of sensing and new forms for the political subject. Or, in the stance of Unesco: the cosmopolitical subject.</p><p>The international organization Unesco has its roots in the early 20th century. The making of the organization – both its birth and bureaucratic constitution – coincides with an emergent information society. Radio, colour-photography, television and film all defy boundaries in some way. These media re-organized time, space and perception, changing the awareness of the other. These media linked the world together in the following logic: same time, but different place. The work that Unesco undertook came to revolve around these media and this logic, especially since Unesco furthered Malraux’s imaginary museum. Unesco’s constitution describes the origins of conflict as residing in man’s mind and promotes the free flow of ideas by word and image. New media would act in an enlightening way and play a significant role in making the organizations dream of a global unity come true. This thesis describes art’s function in Unesco’s attempt to bring this utopia to life.</p> / <p>En undersökning av efterkrigstidens estetiska och politiska landskap bör ta hänsyn till den internationella organisationen Unesco:s kataloger och vandringsutställningar med färgreproduktioner. Organisationen implementerar i dessa André Malrauxs ”imaginära museum” som en tankemodell för en framtida kosmopoltisk, estetisk (och utopisk) gemenskap. Under det sena 1940-talet diskuteras också i Sverige behovet av ”estetisk fostran” som en konsekvens av en estetisk obildning, en illa utvecklad sensibilitet hos det svenska folket. En estetisk (om)bildning har en politisk innebörd såtillvida att det rör det politiska subjektets förnimmande och hans eller hennes förmåga att vara delaktig i en politisk ordning. Frågan är hur ovan nämnda ombildningar konstitueras och utvecklas, hur dessa kan alstra nya sätt att förnimma eller ge upphov till nya former för den politiska subjektiviteten. Eller för Unesco:s räkning: den kosmopolitiska subjektiviteten.</p><p>Den internationella organisationen Unesco har rötter i det tidiga 1900-talet. Organisationens konstitution – dess födelse och författning – sammanfaller med ett framväxande informationssamhälle. Radion, färgfotografiet, televisionen och filmen trotsar på olika sätt gränser. Den omordning av tid, rum och perception som dessa medier medgav, gav en ny medvetenhet om den andre. Medierna knöt samman världen enligt logiken: samtidigt, men på olika platser. Unesco:s arbete kom på olika sätt att kretsa kring dessa medier och denna logik, särskilt som man vidareutvecklade Malrauxs imaginära museum. Unesco:s konstitution beskriver konflikters inre härkomst och uttrycker en vilja att låta idéer flöda fritt över nationsgränser med hjälp av ord och bild. De nya medierna kunde verka upplysande och skulle spela en framträdande roll i organisationens förverkligande av sin dröm om en världspolitisk enhet. Denna uppsats beskriver konstens plats i Unesco:s försök att förverkliga denna utopi.</p>

An inquiry into the post-war European aesthetic and political landscape should take the international organization Unesco’s colour reproductions and travelling exhibitions of paintings into consideration. In these, the organization implements André Malraux’ idea of the “imaginary museum” as a framework for a future cosmopolitical, aesthetic (and utopian) community. During the late 1940’s, the Swedish government also discusses the need for raising an “aesthetic awareness” amongst their citizens as a consequence to a poor knowledge in the fine arts. In short, there is a poor developed sensibility amongst the Swedish people. An aesthetic (re)shaping has political consequences since it concerns the sensibility of the political subject and his or hers ability to partake in a political order. The issue at hand is how these re-shapings are constituted and further developed, i.e. how these create new ways of sensing and new forms for the political subject. Or, in the stance of Unesco: the cosmopolitical subject. The international organization Unesco has its roots in the early 20th century. The making of the organization – both its birth and bureaucratic constitution – coincides with an emergent information society. Radio, colour-photography, television and film all defy boundaries in some way. These media re-organized time, space and perception, changing the awareness of the other. These media linked the world together in the following logic: same time, but different place. The work that Unesco undertook came to revolve around these media and this logic, especially since Unesco furthered Malraux’s imaginary museum. Unesco’s constitution describes the origins of conflict as residing in man’s mind and promotes the free flow of ideas by word and image. New media would act in an enlightening way and play a significant role in making the organizations dream of a global unity come true. This thesis describes art’s function in Unesco’s attempt to bring this utopia to life. / En undersökning av efterkrigstidens estetiska och politiska landskap bör ta hänsyn till den internationella organisationen Unesco:s kataloger och vandringsutställningar med färgreproduktioner. Organisationen implementerar i dessa André Malrauxs ”imaginära museum” som en tankemodell för en framtida kosmopoltisk, estetisk (och utopisk) gemenskap. Under det sena 1940-talet diskuteras också i Sverige behovet av ”estetisk fostran” som en konsekvens av en estetisk obildning, en illa utvecklad sensibilitet hos det svenska folket. En estetisk (om)bildning har en politisk innebörd såtillvida att det rör det politiska subjektets förnimmande och hans eller hennes förmåga att vara delaktig i en politisk ordning. Frågan är hur ovan nämnda ombildningar konstitueras och utvecklas, hur dessa kan alstra nya sätt att förnimma eller ge upphov till nya former för den politiska subjektiviteten. Eller för Unesco:s räkning: den kosmopolitiska subjektiviteten. Den internationella organisationen Unesco har rötter i det tidiga 1900-talet. Organisationens konstitution – dess födelse och författning – sammanfaller med ett framväxande informationssamhälle. Radion, färgfotografiet, televisionen och filmen trotsar på olika sätt gränser. Den omordning av tid, rum och perception som dessa medier medgav, gav en ny medvetenhet om den andre. Medierna knöt samman världen enligt logiken: samtidigt, men på olika platser. Unesco:s arbete kom på olika sätt att kretsa kring dessa medier och denna logik, särskilt som man vidareutvecklade Malrauxs imaginära museum. Unesco:s konstitution beskriver konflikters inre härkomst och uttrycker en vilja att låta idéer flöda fritt över nationsgränser med hjälp av ord och bild. De nya medierna kunde verka upplysande och skulle spela en framträdande roll i organisationens förverkligande av sin dröm om en världspolitisk enhet. Denna uppsats beskriver konstens plats i Unesco:s försök att förverkliga denna utopi.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Architecture and political power have related throughout history in various ways. The most prominent function of architecture, as well as other aesthetics, in the political realm has been to raise the national sentiment of a people. The aesthetics of architecture can be used to sell the ideas of a political system to the populace both by the creation of new architecture and the destruction of symbols contrary to the polity. The vehicle by which politics and architecture interrelate is shown to be the rhetoric surrounding the buildings. Exemplary of this is the nationalist period of Europe, when characters such as Stalin and Hitler manipulated aesthetics to develop national sentiment. Hence, in newly democratic Prague and Berlin we see a change in architecture and a rhetorical debate on the national value of styles, though the styles used in each case were not the same. Architectural style is therefore shown not to reflect a specific political theory, and national sentiment is again the key way in which architecture and politics relate. / Major, United States Army

Em 1931, Oswald de Andrade cria e publica O Homem do Povo, jornal em que manifesta seu ativismo comunista, e no qual satiriza a sociedade capitalista e burguesa no Brasil de seu tempo. Suas edições, no total de oito, foram publicadas em março e abril de 1931, contando com a participação de Patrícia Galvão (Pagu) e Queiroz Lima e com a parceria de importantes intelectuais como o crítico Astrojildo Pereira. O trabalho tem por objetivo analisar propriedades expressivas e críticas das construções do jornal, sobretudo nas formulações do ativista Oswald de Andrade. Para isso foram selecionados do jornal principalmente os editoriais escritos por Oswald de Andrade, vários artigos que levam a sua assinatura, e outros assinados por pseudônimos ou anônimos, evidenciados os traços peculiares de sua escrita e ideias. Por meio da pesquisa investigativa, leitura e análise do corpus, destacam-se três elementos substanciais presentes na sua escrita: o humor do jogo de espírito irreverente, a reflexão vinculada aos propósitos de sua própria formulação crítica a respeito da antropofagia, e a subversão, em que resume elementos de estética e política, cuja configuração se manifesta na própria organicidade do jornal. Tais ingredientes, em analogia com outros articulistas, dão sustentação à substância satírica que permeia o jornal O Homem do Povo. Assim, observa-se nas diferentes estratégias de sua linguagem, metafórica ou não, que Oswald de Andrade continuamente alia-se aos colaboradores para representar um mundo às avessas, alvejando a sociedade capitalista e suas elites. Neste sentido, interessa exibir que, por suas elaborações hiperbólicas, o jornal, provocativamente, serve de instrumento na procura de evidenciar, por diversos meios e modos, o destronamento do burguês e a entronização do povo. Nessa tarefa, Oswald de Andrade busca se reinventar criticamente, ao transpor pela atividade jornalística seu espaço legitimado na burguesia e balizar-se por projetos voltados para o povo. Nesse exercício desdobra-se em seus pseudônimos e se posiciona como líder de um grupo, fazendo da palavra e do humor escudo e arma, construindo paradoxos, trocadilhos, ironias e hipérboles. Com isso Oswald de Andrade aciona o potencial crítico dos recursos da linguagem expressiva e comunicativa que, no jornal O Homem do Povo, serve para denunciar, provocar e ridicularizar valores consagrados pela burguesia e pelo sistema capitalista que a sustenta, fundindo o embate político do articulista e o embate estético do escritor modernista. / In 1931, Oswald de Andrade creates O Homem do Povo, a newspaper in which he publicly declares his communist activism, and in which he satirizes both, capitalism and the bourgeois society at the time. Its eight editions, were published in March and April of 1931 together with the participation of both Patricia Galvão (Pagu) and Queiroz Lima. Such a work intended to analyze both expressive and critical properties of Oswald de Andrades constructions at the journal and to put in evidence points of contact between the aesthetic and political aspects of the activists formulations. For doing it so, Oswald de Andrades editorials were selected such as articles signed by him and others which clearly evidence his writings and ideas. Through reading and corpus analyses it is detected three substantial elements such as: the irreverent spirit game, the reflection tied to purposes of his own critical formulation as far as anthropophagy is concerned and the subversion where he summarizes aesthetics and political elements; the configuration of which shows itself in the setting of the journal. Such ingredients, allied to comicality back up the satirical element that permeates O Homem do Povo. So, it can be observed in any of the different strategies of his vocabulary, either metaphoric or not, that Oswald de Andrade continually tries to represent an upside down world having the capitalist society and its elites as targets. In that way, it is interesting to show that, due to his hyperbolic elaborations, the writer-journalist in a teasing way tries to put in evidence the bourgeois decline and the ascension of the people through many different ways and methods. In such a work, Oswald de Andrade looks forward to reinvent himself critically, by transposing his legitimate space in bourgeoisie through journalist activity and determining projects which concerns the proletariat, that is to say, the lower social class. While doing so he creates many different pseudonyms and situate himself as a leader of the referred class, using words and humor as both shield and weapon, building paradoxes, puns, irony and hyperboles. By doing so, Oswald de Andrade turns on the critical power of his communicative and expressive language that at O Homem do Povo is used for denouncing, teasing and making ridicule consecrated values of the bourgeoisie and of the capitalist system that supports it linking both the political resistance of the journal´s editor and the aesthetic resistance of the modernist writer.

Em 1931, Oswald de Andrade cria e publica O Homem do Povo, jornal em que manifesta seu ativismo comunista, e no qual satiriza a sociedade capitalista e burguesa no Brasil de seu tempo. Suas edições, no total de oito, foram publicadas em março e abril de 1931, contando com a participação de Patrícia Galvão (Pagu) e Queiroz Lima e com a parceria de importantes intelectuais como o crítico Astrojildo Pereira. O trabalho tem por objetivo analisar propriedades expressivas e críticas das construções do jornal, sobretudo nas formulações do ativista Oswald de Andrade. Para isso foram selecionados do jornal principalmente os editoriais escritos por Oswald de Andrade, vários artigos que levam a sua assinatura, e outros assinados por pseudônimos ou anônimos, evidenciados os traços peculiares de sua escrita e ideias. Por meio da pesquisa investigativa, leitura e análise do corpus, destacam-se três elementos substanciais presentes na sua escrita: o humor do jogo de espírito irreverente, a reflexão vinculada aos propósitos de sua própria formulação crítica a respeito da antropofagia, e a subversão, em que resume elementos de estética e política, cuja configuração se manifesta na própria organicidade do jornal. Tais ingredientes, em analogia com outros articulistas, dão sustentação à substância satírica que permeia o jornal O Homem do Povo. Assim, observa-se nas diferentes estratégias de sua linguagem, metafórica ou não, que Oswald de Andrade continuamente alia-se aos colaboradores para representar um mundo às avessas, alvejando a sociedade capitalista e suas elites. Neste sentido, interessa exibir que, por suas elaborações hiperbólicas, o jornal, provocativamente, serve de instrumento na procura de evidenciar, por diversos meios e modos, o destronamento do burguês e a entronização do povo. Nessa tarefa, Oswald de Andrade busca se reinventar criticamente, ao transpor pela atividade jornalística seu espaço legitimado na burguesia e balizar-se por projetos voltados para o povo. Nesse exercício desdobra-se em seus pseudônimos e se posiciona como líder de um grupo, fazendo da palavra e do humor escudo e arma, construindo paradoxos, trocadilhos, ironias e hipérboles. Com isso Oswald de Andrade aciona o potencial crítico dos recursos da linguagem expressiva e comunicativa que, no jornal O Homem do Povo, serve para denunciar, provocar e ridicularizar valores consagrados pela burguesia e pelo sistema capitalista que a sustenta, fundindo o embate político do articulista e o embate estético do escritor modernista. / In 1931, Oswald de Andrade creates O Homem do Povo, a newspaper in which he publicly declares his communist activism, and in which he satirizes both, capitalism and the bourgeois society at the time. Its eight editions, were published in March and April of 1931 together with the participation of both Patricia Galvão (Pagu) and Queiroz Lima. Such a work intended to analyze both expressive and critical properties of Oswald de Andrades constructions at the journal and to put in evidence points of contact between the aesthetic and political aspects of the activists formulations. For doing it so, Oswald de Andrades editorials were selected such as articles signed by him and others which clearly evidence his writings and ideas. Through reading and corpus analyses it is detected three substantial elements such as: the irreverent spirit game, the reflection tied to purposes of his own critical formulation as far as anthropophagy is concerned and the subversion where he summarizes aesthetics and political elements; the configuration of which shows itself in the setting of the journal. Such ingredients, allied to comicality back up the satirical element that permeates O Homem do Povo. So, it can be observed in any of the different strategies of his vocabulary, either metaphoric or not, that Oswald de Andrade continually tries to represent an upside down world having the capitalist society and its elites as targets. In that way, it is interesting to show that, due to his hyperbolic elaborations, the writer-journalist in a teasing way tries to put in evidence the bourgeois decline and the ascension of the people through many different ways and methods. In such a work, Oswald de Andrade looks forward to reinvent himself critically, by transposing his legitimate space in bourgeoisie through journalist activity and determining projects which concerns the proletariat, that is to say, the lower social class. While doing so he creates many different pseudonyms and situate himself as a leader of the referred class, using words and humor as both shield and weapon, building paradoxes, puns, irony and hyperboles. By doing so, Oswald de Andrade turns on the critical power of his communicative and expressive language that at O Homem do Povo is used for denouncing, teasing and making ridicule consecrated values of the bourgeoisie and of the capitalist system that supports it linking both the political resistance of the journal´s editor and the aesthetic resistance of the modernist writer.

[pt] A presente Tese de Doutorado investiga algumas das relações entre arte, política e movimentos sociais que permeiam nosso presente, partindo de uma constelação insurgente composta por exposições, ações, trabalhos de arte e de ativismo ocorridos no Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo e Pernambuco, circunscritos no período entre 2004 e 2018. Em uma abordagem transversal de arte e política, cada um dos seis capítulos coloca um determinado elemento estético em cena: duas ações do coletivo Frente Três de Fevereiro (1) e uma do Política do Impossível (2); o coletivismo artístico em torno da ocupação Prestes Maia (3) e seu desdobramento na exposição Zona de Poesia Árida e no suporte instalativo Poética do Dissenso (4); duas performances de Elilson (5); dois trabalhos de Bárbara Wagner em colaboração com grupos de evangélicos neopentecostais (6). Partindo desta constelação, discutimos problemas como a poética da política, uma educação pelo silêncio, a crítica institucional e a institucionalidade crítica, uma política do luto e da memória, além de questões relativas a coletivos, minorias, alteridades, identidades e lugares de fala. Nos baseamos especialmente no pensamento de Jacques Rancière, amparado por autores como Bruno Latour, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler e Suely Rolnik. Assumimos uma abordagem fragmentária, que tangencia o método cartográfico de Suely Rolnik; as constelações benjaminianas; as cenas rancierianas; os traços barthesianos; e o composicionismo de Bruno Latour. Esta estratégia absorve certos modos de inteligibilidade comuns aos procedimentos de curadoria ou de montagem, em que a reunião de uma série de imagens singulares pode agenciar múltiplas possibilidades de sentido. Na presente Tese, ela permite a emergência de um presente composto enquanto um campo irresoluto de vibração dissensual. / [en] This Doctoral Thesis investigates some of the relationships between art, politics and social movements that permeate our present, starting from an insurgent constellation composed of exhibitions, activist actions and art works that took place in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Pernambuco, in the period between 2004 and 2018. In a transversal approach to art and politics, each one of the six chapters enacts a certain aesthetic element: two actions held by Frente Três de Fevereiro collective (1) and one action held by Política do Impossível collective (2); the artistic collectivism around Prestes Maia occupation (3) and its unfolding in the exhibition Zona de Poesia Árida and in the installation work Poética do Dissenso (4); two performances conceived by Elilson (5); two pieces made by Bárbara Wagner, in collaboration with neopentecostal groups (6). Starting from this constellation, we discuss matters such as the poetics of politics, an education through silence, institutional critique and critical institutionality, a politics of mourning and memory, as well as issues related to collectives, minorities, alterities, identities and speaking places. This research draws especially on the thought of Jacques Rancière, supported by authors such as Bruno Latour, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Suely Rolnik. Seeking to privilege a fragmentary approach, our method derives from Suely Rolnik s cartographic method; benjaminian s constellations; rancierian s scenes; barthesian s traces; and Bruno Latour s compositionism. This strategy absorbs certain modes of intelligibility common to curatorship, editing and assembly procedures, in which the gathering of a series of singular images can bring together multiple possibilities of meaning. Inside this Thesis, that method allows the emergence of a present compound as an unresolved field of dissenting vibration.