Interpassivity

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interpassivity describes a theory developed by Robert Pfaller and others in the field of cultural studies and psychoanalysis . It is the practice of delegating one's actions and feelings to external objects , i.e. people or things . The theory of interpassivity mainly relates to the area of pleasure sensations , which is why interpassivity can also be defined as "delegated enjoyment".

Origin of the term

The term interpassivity was first used in 1994 by the “ one-man artist group ” Stiletto Studio, s on the occasion of a two-month long-term communication -artistic live television broadcast experiment in collaboration with the American neoist tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as an ironic counter-representation to the then new popular concept of interactivity utilized. By tentatively, a convenience as " psychological playfare " apostrophised media installation "Coffee transmission circuit" at the Berlin Academy of Arts clarified primarily through surveillance - and tap-technical integration of the visitors that the so-called interactivity of the then new IT -based media no back channel in Realized in the sense of Brecht's radio theory and was little more than an extension of a consumer offer , in which the activity still originated from the transmitter and the receiver could only react out of his heteronomous passivity. The original use of the term by Stiletto thus differs significantly from the term allocation used later by Robert Pfaller and others.

Delegated enjoyment

Psychologically , interpassivity is a subtle form of escape from one's own enjoyment . Instead of enjoying yourself, the interpassive lets others enjoy for you. Although he perceives this outsourcing as an increase in pleasure, he flees from his pleasure. Pfaller differentiates interpassivity from asceticism , however, when he emphasizes that interpassivity does not mean a denial of enjoyment, but only its shift to others and thus a different form of enjoyment. The enjoyment of the other (who can also be Lacan's great other ) is precisely what one enjoys - only passively.

Behind the desire for interpassivity stands the fear that the confrontation with one's own enjoyment, the Jouissance in the sense of Jacques Lacan, causes. The subject fends off the insecurity that accompanies intense emotions and is content with the passive, delegated form of feeling that protects it from real sympathy. The traumatic presence of real feelings is warded off and replaced by the distancing mediation by the other. As a neurotic stabilization of one's own identity and as a substitute act , interpassivity has features of compulsive action and perversion in the sense of psychoanalysis .

Interpassivity as a cultural phenomenon

However, interpassivity also has a supra-individual, social, cultural dimension. The authors analyze interpassivity in the volume edited by Pfaller . Studies on delegated enjoyment (2000) numerous socially widespread behavior patterns as forms of interpassivity, which in this respect does not represent a pathological deviation from normality, but is accepted as "normal" behavior. The company itself also provides numerous offers for interpassive delegation, for example in the form of certain consumer items , mass media presentations and rituals (see examples below). Interpassivity is a reciprocal process that describes an interaction between the individual and society . The debate about social / sociological dimensions and political implications of the interpassivity concept is dealt with in the 2011 volume We have never been active. Interpassivity between art and social criticism (ed. By Robert Feustel, Nico Koppo and Hagen Schölzel) added and expanded.

The subject to whom belief is placed

Pfaller emphasizes another, ideological aspect of interpassivity: as a rational, sensible person, one does not believe in the success of interpassive delegation, but always assumes the existence of a fictitious audience. This audience, which takes on the function of a “naive observer” of its own interpassivity, does not really need to exist. It is, to use Lacan, a "subject to whom belief is placed". It “believes” in the staging of the interactive, which is what makes it work and make sense. This function is made possible by the fact that the naive observer, unlike the Freudian superego , does not see the secret impulses of the interpassive person, but only the deceptive surface of his staging. Pfaller underlines his thesis with the example of the depiction of a dead person on a theater stage . When that person has to sneeze, there is usually general laughter. But why? Both the rest of the cast and the audience know that the person is not really dead. The joy can, according to Pfaller, be explained by the fact that the faux pas made it clear that the theater production did not so much deceive the real audience as the fictional, naive observer. This belief ( belonging to the realm of magic and superstition ) makes the aesthetic enjoyment of fiction possible in the first place. So people laugh not at their own disappointment , but at that of the naive observer.

Examples

  • Jacques Lacan sees the choir in Greek tragedy as a representative instance, articulating the audience's emotions and relieving them of them.
  • A common example from everyday culture is the laugh track ( "canned laughter") in sitcoms , which laughs at our place, and so spare us the "trouble" of their own laughter. We feel so liberated as if the laughter was our own.
  • Slavoj Žižek illustrates interpassivity in Lacan's figure of the “subject to whom belief is placed”. He explains this with an example from the Stalinist dictatorship : When the high-ranking Soviet politician Lavrenti Beria died in 1954 and was soon ostracized as a traitor and spy, there was a laudatory article about him in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. The publisher of the encyclopedia therefore wrote to all recipients and asked them to cut out the pages about Beria and send them back to the publisher. In exchange for the missing pages, they were sent an article on the Bering Strait . But if everyone knew about the forgery, since they were involved in it, why or for whom was it then veiled? “The only answer is, of course, for the non-existent subject to whom belief is imputed,” replies Žižek. This fictional subject, which Žižek believes is a fundamental part of any ideological identification , believes in our place, so to speak.
  • Tibetan prayer wheels replace your own prayer .
  • The sports viewer enjoys the performance of others, and in the cooking show, others cook for the viewer's pleasure.

See also

literature

  • Robert Feustel, Nico Koppo, Hagen Schölzel (eds.): We have never been active. Interpassivity between art and social criticism , Kadmos, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86599-138-6 (with contributions by Robert Pfaller, Gijs van Oenen and others)
  • Robert Pfaller (Ed.): Interpassivity. Studies on delegated enjoyment , Springer, Berlin a. a. 2000, ISBN 3-211-83303-X (with contributions by Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, August Ruhs and others)
  • Robert Pfaller: The Illusions of Others. About the pleasure principle in culture. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-12279-7 .
  • Robert Pfaller: Aesthetics of Interpassivity . Philo Fine Arts, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86572-650-6
  • Slavoj Žižek: Love your symptom like yourself! Jacques Lacans Psychoanalysis and the Media , Merve, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-88396-081-0 .
  • Jacques Lacan: Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (text produced by Jacques-Alain Miller, translated by Norbert Haas), Quadriga, Berlin / Weinheim 1996, ISBN 3-88679-910-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stiletto Studio's: “The test image as an interpassive communication service” in: Durchblick No. 11, Zeitschrift des Offenen Kanals Berlin , II / 1994
  2. ↑ Stefan Meyer: “Wirrtuelle Reality”, Zitty 6/1994, Berlin
  3. ↑ Andreas Bock: "Having more power over the program - what actually is interactive television?", P. 10, Berliner Morgenpost , Berlin, 3./4. April 1994
  4. ↑ X 94 - Young Art and Culture , Stiletto Studio's: Der "Blaumilchkanal" , pp. 122 - 123, Akademie der Künste , Berlin, 1994, ISBN 3-929139-56-1
  5. ↑ LETTER FROM FLORIAN CRAMER TO STEWART HOME OF 25/10/95 via one of many “ interpassive ” “sleeper sleep” cable TV broadcasts from the “open couch” of the “coffee end of the day” HOUSE OF 9 SQUARES: LETTERS ON NEOISM, PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY & EPISTIDEMOLOGICAL
  6. ↑ tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE on the concept of interpassivity in connection with one of his cable television live transmission experiments from the “open couch” of the “coffee send closing” 182. Sideways couch
  7. ↑ tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE on the concept of interpassivity in a book review of Florian Cramer's book “Anti-Media” 2013. Anti-Media - Ephemera on Speculative Arts
  8. ↑ Description of the "interpassive" installation in Wikipedia entry about stiletto under Stiletto (artist) #Life and Stiletto (artist) #Exhibition design, art project developments, installations and curatorial activities (selection)
  9. ↑ See Lacan, Seminar XII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis , p. 303 ff.
  10. ↑ Cf. Žižek, Love your symptom like yourself , p. 50 ff.
  11. ↑ Cf. Žižek, The substitution between interactivity and interpassivity , in: Pfaller (ed.), Interpassiveness , p. 15.
  12. ↑ Cf. Žižek, The substitution between interactivity and interpassivity , in: Pfaller (ed.), Interpassiveness , p. 14.
  13. ↑ Couch potatoes wrapped in bacon taz .