State of emergency, distant studying and all the rest
(The following text is based on a infoletter I wrote together with Anni Klein 4.4.2020 for a distant study project under title "State of Emergency")
Trying to understand what is happening in the world right now can be seen
and interpreted as artistic thinking. One who is diving deep into a phenomena
could be seen as artist at work. We’ve been interested in offering the students
a frame, where they can get study credits for that work. But the situation affects
us differently and one might feel overwhelmed by all what is happening, by the
news, writings, comments, interpretations, warnings, suggestions and so forth.
So I have also adviced the students to drop the project of diving into the
depths of pandemia, if they feel like it
could challenge their well-being and concentrate on something else.
State of emergency is a fact in many countries right now, but it is not a
novelty. It could have been interpreted to be a common and permanent state of
today's societies, even before the Covid-19 virus emerged, in the era that could be
described as a conjunction of crises: ecological, economical, social,
political, etc. (see e.g. Hall&Massey: Interpreting
the crisis). State of emergency - as a political gesture - offers a way to
narrow down the possibilities of the masses to act and to express their
opinion. Now it is used to protect us from the virus. We could discuss lengthy
who all are included in this “us” we are talking about. The reactions and
measures taken because of the Covid-19 virus, are not as democratic as the virus
itself has been claimed to be. The state of emergency and the restrictions impact
unequally various groups of peoples and individuals and it makes many
ongoing repressive processes of the society blatantly visible.
What kind of modes of
behavior and what kind of politics (or policy making?) does the current state
of emergency produce? What kind of practices are being produced and who
gains from them? Is there something familiar or recognizable in our reactions
to the virus? Something which is resurfacing? Who and what gets protection
through these measures, who and what does not? How does the state of exception
alter our relationship to space and to other people? Could this state of
exception create new forms of solidarity, new practices between people? What
could they be? What happens with the restrictions created during the state of
emergency after the crisis?
The hypothesis could
be, that the actual state of emergency,
if taken seriously, can help us to really dive into the world of today and to
create some perspectives for the world of tomorrow.
The state of emergency can also be used as an approach and a tool to create a
contemporary stage. What would a Stage of Emergency look like? What happens
there if anything at all? What do we show, share and see? What is hiding,
hidden and invisible? What we see when we try to see the invisible, in this
case the invisible possible being the virus, or something else…
The way we look at something is already limited by the ways we have learned
to look at the things. We use the artistic, analytic and affectional tools we
have at hand when starting to dig into a theme/phenomena/etc. There is
dramaturgy to be found and created everywhere. What are the components of the
situation, how they are inter-/intraconnected, inter-/intra-acting, effecting
and affecting each other? What are the proportions chosen, how do we narrow
down, what all we include and embrace and consider? Any virus and the reactions
we might have to it, have their own dramaturgy, as well as any performance has
its’ own particular dramaturgy.
What kind of dramaturgies are we drawn into from our research, questions
and possible conclusions? What kind of dramaturgies does the world need right
now? What kind of dramaturgies do you need? Could you work on that?
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