Interpassivity: The Aesthetics of Delegated Enjoyment

by Robert Pfaller

A radical criticism of current assumptions in the field of cultural theory todayWhy do people record TV programmes instead of watching them? Why are former alcoholics pleased to let other people drink in their place? Why can ritual machines pray in place of believers? Robert Pfaller advances a general theory of interpassivity as the wish for delegated consumption and enjoyment in both art and in everyday life, tackling a vast range of culture, art, sports and religion.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Art, Theory, Nonfiction

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[SY · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are an artist, curator or art administrator, this book will make you see everything differently. I‘ve always been a bit suspicious of the assumed democratizing effects of participatory art and of open-ended form. I too wish that unscored improvization and audience activation could solve all of the art world‘s structural problems - that *would* be fantastic! But as Pfaller explains, in a way that isn’t reactionist, the assumed radical tendencies of some of these practices are potentially naive, and maybe even regressive.

Here’s an excerpt from chapter five, which is titled ”Against Participation“:

“… it is misleading to believe that activating the audience in art is automatically and always tantamount to their liberation. Because could not the exact opposite be the case: could the enthusiasm for joining in produced by art not deprive people of the necessary refractoriness that they would need in political life in order not to be immediately enthused by every neoliberal or reactionary or even fascist appeal to ‘actively’ join in, and pursue this with a feeling of liberation?”

WORD!

[Salvador Ramírez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este es un libro de ensayos sobre la "interpasividad", concepto desarrollado por su autor, el filosofo Robert Pfaller. Concepto que puede entenderse como la delegación del consumo y el goce a un agente externo (cosa, persona o animal).

En total tiene 7 ensayos más la introducción, escritos de manera ágil y corta. El primer ensayo, donde más desarrollo el concepto de interpasvidad, lo enfoca en el arte y las cuestiones que genera a su alrededor. Aunque para el desarrollo del concepto recurre a la filosofía y al psicoanálisis.

En el segundo, utiliza la idea del parricidio en la obra de "Los hermanos Karamaozv" para explicar la interpasvidiad. En el tercer ensayo utiliza la idea de interpasividad para explicar el uso de rituales en la religión.

En el cuarto, toca el uso repetitivo de ejemplos y chistes por parte de Slavoj Žižek en sus textos, en el cual señala que son herramientas argumentativas de corte dialéctico - no ejemplos lineales que ilustran un punto. En el quinto esgrime la idea contra la participación en el arte, en donde desarrolla la idea de que interactividad que se vuelve maniquea y refleja el narcisismo de quién la impulsa.

En el sexto ensayo habla sobre el arte y el amor, el cómo su burocratización (neoliberal) y los eventos (de presentación) rompen con la universalidad del arte. Finamente, el último ensayo, habla sobre la ética de la urbanidad, de cómo gran parte de las relaciones de cortesía urbana, etc, están basados en ilusiones que no creen ambas partes, pero juegan con ellas para vivir en sociedad. Sin embargo, en los últimos años se ha degradado esta urbanidad y se ha vuelto a comportamientos escencialistas, tribales, que vuelven a la cultura más "primitiva", más infantil. Que facilita el juzgar la política por los comportamientos privados de los políticos, más que sus agendas o acciones.

Sin duda un libro recomendado para los interesados en filosofía, teoría crítica, crítica cultural y del arte. Concepto que tiene un alto potencial para explicar diversos fenómenos sociales y culturales actuales.

[Alex Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Interpassivity' is a nifty neologism; it's commodity fetishism gone amok. In favour of individualist self-optimisation, commodities become prostheses for omitting pleasure. Issue is, this text extrapolates a concept outlined in a brief paragraph by Slavoj Žižek in his Sublime Object of Ideology and contributes relatively little (beyond enhancing its examples). It is repetitive, as acknowledged by Pfaller, with some bizarre conclusionary remarks that seem to venerate interpassivity (the distance between profiteering CEOs reaping surplus-value in a passive state doesn't quite reconcile with the worker position...) while the strongest aspects are condemning it. The "pseudo-emancipatory politics" leading to self-exploitation and nod to Foucault in this injunction to produce/confess (which Pfaller contradicts in suggesting passivity desubjectifies the individual?) reminds me of Byung-Chul Han's Burnout Society -- a great and equally relevant book. All aside, it helps to cement many Žižekian ideas via brute force.

[TheBoxMan]

A lot of Zizek dick riding. That aside, an insightful overview of the concept of 'interpassivity'. Pfaller doesn't seem to think of interpassivity as a negative phenomenon. With the exception of some rare instances, I don't see how it can be anything but. Interpassivity outsources the act of living. Instead of doing our living ourselves, we imbue commodities (or others, qua-commodities) with the agency to do our living for us — it is the logic of capitalism followed through to its most extreme, where the commodity rules all. We do not have the energy or time to live, so we procure commodities so that they might live in our place.

[Maryam Aymen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The specific ‘manic’ ability for art making only occurs when the artists manage to relate in such a way to this other, by loving this other. This ability is transferred to them by others. And artists feel this transference as soon as the feel that others expect something from them. When they want to satisfy this expectation, they are in love.”

My very first time reading a book that’s completely different from what i usually go for. I encourage any art creator or consumer of any kind or form for that matter to pick this book up when the time’s right and let themselves indulge in it. Because they will not be disappointed.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple in love attend a masked ball. In a hidden place at the appointed time they meet and then take off their masks - but both of them turn out to be somebody else.

[Simon Popek · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐