Things Activism. A Political Aesthetics of Things in a Posthuman World Cover Image

Things Activism. A Political Aesthetics of Things in a Posthuman World
Things Activism. A Political Aesthetics of Things in a Posthuman World

Author(s): Catalin Gheorghe
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Philosophy, Fine Arts / Performing Arts
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Keywords: things activism; art activism; democracy of objects;object-oriented philosophy;posthumanism;

Summary/Abstract: Starting from a description of art activism, one of the relevant art movements in the XXIst century, as a working model for the possibility of a ‘things activism’, the article is approaching a series of posthumanist reasons to elaborate a ‘political aesthetics of things’ based on concepts derived from the sociology of objects, the object-oriented philosophy, the new materialism, the speculative realism, such as the ‘parliament of things’, the ‘internet of things’, the ‘democracy of objects’, and the ‘political ecology of things’, with the derived fiction of the possibility of a ‘nation of things’. To the extent that ‘humans’ are involved in political protests to respond, for example, to the consequences of the supercilious exploitation or noxious transformation of nature, there are also reactions and participations of natural or artistic ‘things’ or ‘hybrids’ that can be seen as being part of a ‘collective action’ of a ‘congregation of bodies’.

  • Issue Year: 67/2018
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 205-225
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: English