Aristita Albăcan   (Cluj, Romania):

“With love, against corruption: Creative strategies/tactics towards political sustainability”.

Discourses in the field of politics - whether articulated by way of social theory, philosophy or performance - appear to have been, in recent years, short-circuiting themselves around the idea of power, aiming to articulate its new ways of manifestation. They are often translated in psychological terms, especially at individual level, into a sense of slow, but steady dis-empowerment. The response, present almost everywhere in Western culture, is a drift towards populism, nationalist, xenophobic and even fascist tendencies, all exploiting notions of hate and fear. In aiming to counteract such tendencies, the focus has been on critiquing ‘the bad”, the “morally wrong”, the post-factual aspects of such political discourses, aiming to cope with the phenomenon through rationalisation. The results, however, have not proven too empowering, so far. Notwithstanding the importance and usefulness of such critique, I suggest, a focus on love as a productive principle for re-empowerment at individual/societal level. I propose love as a concept to be explored both theoretically and by way of performance. Not its erotic or romantic aspects, but in its ethical dimensions, as a coagulating factor through which social bonds and the place of the individual within them are re-discovered and possibly re-built. In sum, love as a way towards social and political sustainability. Starting from Grzinic’s (2012) discussion of the shift from biopolitics to necropolitics and Butler’s (2007) articulation of doubting love, and following on Fromm’s (1956) notion of love as an activity that implies care, responsibility, respect and knowledge, as well as Levinas’ (1961) and Baudiou' s (2012) attempts to articulate an ethics of love connected to politics, I articulate a theoretical framework for discussing current examples of performances in Eastern and Western Europe (ranging from Uninvited Guests [UK] to the Women in Black [Srebenica, Serbia] to Va Vedem din Sibiu [Romania]).

The presentation will be followed by a discussion, and the Arts@Artaud platform at the Artaud Theatre.