What Matters Most

This book argues that the psychoanalytic concept of disavowal best renders the structure underlying our contemporary social response to traumatic and disturbing events, from climate change to unsettling tectonic shifts in our social tissue. Unlike denialism and negation, disavowal functions by fully acknowledging what we disavow. Zupancic contends that disavowal, which sustains some belief by means of ardently proclaiming the knowledge of the opposite, is becoming a predominant feature of our social and political life. She also shows how the libidinal economy of disavowal is a key element of capitalist economy.

The concept of fetishistic disavowal already exposes the objectified side of the mechanism of the disavowal, which follows the general formula: I know well, but all the same, the object-fetish allows me to disregard this knowledge. Zupancic adds another twist by showing how, in the prevailing structure of disavowal today, the mere act of declaring that we know becomes itself an object-fetish by which we intercept the reality of that very knowledge. This perverse deployment of knowledge deprives it of any reality.

This structure of disavowal can be found not only in the more extreme and dramatic cases of conspiracy theories and re-emerging magical thinking, but even more so in the supposedly sober continuation of business as usual, combined with the call to adapt to the new reality. To disrupt this social embedding of disavowal, it is not enough to change the way we think: things need to change, and hence the way they think for us.

Consisting of twelve chapters written by leading scholars in the field, and a long interview with Schlingensief himself, the book will provide the reader with the first comprehensive study of the intriguing body of work that Schlingensief has developed over the last thirty years.

Part of Library of Performing Rights (P3041).

Exhibition catalogue; Summerhall, 2/8 – 24/9 2017.

A practical handbook on the lost art of getting lost, reading the signs around you, following their lead, and creating your own.

Explores the ways in which contemporary artists across media continue to reinvent art that straddles both public and private spheres.

Examines innovative and avant-garde works in relation to contemporary events, festivals, commissions, the marketplace, and the changing functions of museums.

In each annual volume, contributors document works made in the previous year. By including performances regardless of their country of origin, genre, aims, or popularity, INDEX reveals the breathtaking variety of practices used in performance work today.

Documentation from the DIY13 project: a collective process of devising and then performing a public action, over the course of a weekend.

Part of the Library of Performing Rights (LPR) (P3041).

A film about the future by Eva Meyer-Keller, Hanna Sybille Müller and the children who took part in the performance project  Building after Catastrophes.

Whether he’s creating a dance composed solely of everyday actions, working with an ensemble of children, or running a “dancing museum,” Charmatz’s work experiments with the body as a vessel for subjectivity, history, and collective action. 

Exhibition catalogue. Biennale Arte 2017, 57th International Art Exhibition – Viva Arte Viva. 13 May – 26 November 2017.

A project based on a hypotethical (hypothetical and ethical) situation (political, social, military, security, natural catastrophy …) in which the citizens of highly developed countries (mainly from the West) would be forced to leave their country and look for a temporary home in another country.

Part of the Library of Performing Rights (LPR) (P3041).