The Efficiency of Ideology and the Possibilities of Art: An Althusserian Account
Keywords:
Althusser, artistic research, belief, ideology, faith, paradoxical intervention, paranoia, subjectification
Abstract
Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology allows us to account for all kinds of joyful obedience performed by individuals. This theory does not require any assumption of lacking knowledge or “false consciousness” on the side of subjectivated individuals. Therefore, it provides the crucial tools for explaining the specific political efficiency of art. This efficiency does not stem from any new “information,” as the predominant tendencies in alleged “political” or “documentary” art since the 1990s have presupposed, and as the popular notion of “artistic research” may still suggest. On the contrary, in order to be politically efficient, art has to tackle not the knowledge but the specific subjectivations individuals have undergone. When one augments Althusser’s fragmentary account of subjectivation by the distinctions between “belief” and “faith” introduced by Octave Mannoni, and additionally introduces as a third category that of “paranoia,” then one can specify the predominant types of subjectivation in current Western societies—as well as the exits that critical art can offer from these subjectivations. Artistic exit strategies from forms of faith and paranoia will be analyzed with regard to works by John Heartfield, Bernard Mandeville, and Christoph Schlingensief.
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Freud, Sigmund (1999). Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices [1907b]. SE 9, 115–27.
Freud, Sigmund (1999). Totem and Taboo [1912–13]. SE 13, 1–161.
Freud, Sigmund (1999). On Narcissism: An Introduction [1914c]. SE 14, 67–102.
Freud, Sigmund (1999). Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego [1921c]. SE 18, 67–143.
Freud, Sigmund (1999). The Future of an Illusion [1927c]. SE 21, 3–56.
Gludowatz, Karin, ed. (2004). Auf den Spuren des Realen: Kunst und Dokumentarismus. Vienna: MUMOK.
Grunberger, Bélaand Pierre Dessuant (1997). Narcissisme, Christianisme et Antisemitisme. Etude psychoanalytique. Arles: Actes Sud.
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HellerRoazen, Daniel (2007). The Inner Touch: Archaeology of a Sensation. New York: Zone Books.
Huizinga, Johan (1955). Homo Ludens.A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.
Humphrey, Caroline and James Laidlaw (1994). The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Institut für Sozialforschung (1956). Soziologische Exkurse. Nach Vorträgen und Diskussionen. Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt.
Jochum, Christian (2000). Fernsehen als Religion. Diplomathesis, University of Innsbruck.
Kant, Immanuel (2006). Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View [1798]. Ed. Robert B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lacan, Jacques (1988) The Seminar. Book I. Freud’s Papers on Technique [1953–54]. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Norton.
LaquièzeWaniek, Eva and Robert Pfaller, eds. (2013). Die letzten Tage der Klischees. Übertragungen in Psychoanalyse, Kunst und Gesellschaft. Vienna: Turia + Kant.
Lilienthal, Matthias and Claus Philipp (2000). Schlingensiefs ausländer raus: bitte liebt Österreich. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Luks, Fred (2002). Nachhaltigkeit. Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt.
Luks, Fred (2014). Öko-Populismus: warum einfache “Lösungen,” Unwissen und Meinungsterror unsere Zukunft bedrohen. Marburg: Metropolis.
Mandeville, Bernard (1980). Die Bienenfabel oder Private Laster, öffentliche Vorteile/The GrumblingHiveorKnavesturn’d Honest.[1705]. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Mannoni, Octave (1985). “La désidentification.” In Le Moi et l’Autre, ed. J. Dor, 61–79. Paris: Denoël.
Mannoni, Octave (2003). “I Know Well, But All the Same…” In Perversion and the Social Relation, eds. M. A. Rothenberg and D. Foster, 68–92. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Marx, Karl (1844). A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critiquehpr/intro.htm.
Marx, Karl (1976). “Zur kritik der Hegelschen rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung” [1844]. In Engels, Friedrich and Karl Marx. Werke, Bd. 1, 378–391. Berlin: Dietz.
Marx, Karl (1971). “Einleitung [zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie]” [1857]. In Engels, Friedrich and Karl Marx. Werke, Bd. 13, 615–42. Berlin: Dietz.
Marx, Karl (1863). “Abschweifung über produktive arbeit.” In Engels, Friedrich and Karl Marx. Werke, Bd. 26.1, 363–364. https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/marx engels/1863/tumw/standard/add1.htm#mew26.1p363_add111.
McLuhan, Marshall (1987). Understanding Media. The Extensions Of Man [1964]. Lon- don: Ark Paperbacks.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1984). “Zur Genealogie der Moral” [1887]. In Werke, Bd. III, ed. Karl Schlechta, 207–346. Frankfurt: Ullstein Materialen.
Orwell, George (1971). Inside the Whale and Other Essays. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Pfaller, Robert (2011). Wofür es sich zu leben lohnt. Elemente materialistischer Philoso- phie. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Pfaller, Robert (2013).“Vier Fragen an Robert Pfaller, Interview von Tobi Müller.” Monopol http://www.monopolmagazin.de/RobertPfallerinterviewhalle14-leipzig.
Pfaller, Robert (2014). On the Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions without Owners. Trans. Lisa Rosenblatt. London: Verso.
Pfaller, Robert (2015). “The Althusserian Battlegrounds.” In Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Materialism, eds. Agon Hamza and Frank Ruda, 23–42. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rancière, Jacques (2009) The Emancipated Spectator. Trans. Gregory Elliott. London: Verso.
Reich, Wilhelm (1970). The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Trans. Vincent Carfagno. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.
Sennett, Richard (1977). The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knopf.
Sonderegger, Ruth (2014). Art and Ideology Critique after ’89 / Kunst und Ideologiekritiknach ’89. Eds. Eva Birkenstock et al., 172–175. Bregenz: Kunsthaus Bregenz.
Sontag, Susan (2001). Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Picador.
Spinoza, Benedict de (1955). On the Improvement of the Understanding, The Ethics, Correspondence. New York: Dover Publications.
Spinoza, Benedict de (2002). Complete Works. Trans. Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Spinoza, Benedict de (2007). Theological-Political Treatise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tertullian [Tertullianus, Quintus Septimius] (2008). De spectaculis. Über die spiele. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Thomas, Günter (1996). Medien—Ritual—Religion. Zur religiösen funktion des fernsehens, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Ullrich, Wolfgang (2005). “Je ne sais quoi. Warum es auf die frage ‘Was ist Kunst?’ keine Antwort gibt.” In Was war kunst? Biographien eines begriffs, 9–30. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Veyne, Paul (1988). Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination. Trans. Paula Wissing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weber, Max (1988). “Die protestantische ethik und der geist des kapitalismus” [1905]. In Gesammelte aufsätzezur religionssoziologie I, 1–206. Tübingen: Mohr.
Žižek, Slavoj (1988). “Das subjekt vor der subjektwerdung.” Kulturrevolution 20: 36–37.
Žižek, Slavoj (1993). Tarrying with the Negative. Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Žižek, Slavoj (2000). The Fragile Absolute–or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for? London: Verso.
Žižek, Slavoj (2014). Absolute Recoil. Toward a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism. London: Verso.
Published
2016-12-10
How to Cite
Pfaller, R. (2016). The Efficiency of Ideology and the Possibilities of Art: An Althusserian Account. Stasis, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.33280/2310-3817-2016-4-2-40-67
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