The Emancipated Spectator
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
The foremost philosopher of art argues for a new politics of looking.
The theorists of art and film commonly depict the modern audience as aesthetically and politically passive. In response, both artists and thinkers have sought to transform the spectator into an active agent and the spectacle into a communal performance. In this follow-up to the acclaimed The Future of the Image, Rancière takes a radically different approach to this attempted emancipation. First asking exactly what we mean by political art or the politics of art, he goes on to look at what the tradition of critical art, and the desire to insert art into life, has achieved. Has the militant critique of the consumption of images and commodities become, ironically, a sad affirmation of its omnipotence?
Jacques Ranciere
Jacques Ranci�re is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.
Read more from Jacques Ranciere
The Future of the Image Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hatred of Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emancipated Spectator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Emancipated Spectator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hatred of Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Proletarian Nights: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Intervals of Cinema Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Is a People? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMute Speech Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRecognition or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter on the Politics of Freedom, Equality, and Identity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Intellectual and His People: Staging the People Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsModern Times: Temporality in Art and Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStaging the People: The Proletarian and His Double Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Intellectual and His People: Staging the People Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Emancipated Spectator
Related ebooks
Turn, Turtle!: Reenacting The Institute Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTheatrical Reality: Space, Embodiment and Empathy in Performance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Limine - Notes For A Symptom Theatre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCatastrophe Practice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Basic Forms of Cinematography - Form, Rhythm, Colour and Relativity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not just a mirror. Looking for the political theatre today: Performing Urgency 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnderson's Reality and the Arts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsModes of Spectating Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Encyclopedia of Erotica Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trends in Contemporary Assamese Theatre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQueering Visual Cultures: Re-Presenting Sexual Politics on Stage and Screen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAccommodating the Lively Arts: An Architect’s View Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAudience Explorations: Guidebook for Hopefully Seeking the Audience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStyles of Radical Will Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slave: Expanded Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Politics and Poetics of Cinematic Realism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Drama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Film Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Theatrical Image by Clay and Krempel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Arts of Cinema Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Empty Space Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radio / body: Phenomenology and dramaturgies of radio Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCentral and Flexible Staging: A New Theater in the Making Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPopular Theatre in Political Culture: Britain and Canada in focus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Drama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Use and Abuse of Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What is Acting? is it an Art? What is Art? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJoined Forces: Audience Participation in Theatre. Performing Urgencies #3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Philosophy For You
Questions for Deep Thinkers: 200+ of the Most Challenging Questions You (Probably) Never Thought to Ask Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Courage to Be Happy: Discover the Power of Positive Psychology and Choose Happiness Every Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bhagavad Gita Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude: The Life-changing Power of Everyday Mindfulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Course in Miracles: Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters from a Stoic: All Three Volumes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bhagavad Gita (in English): The Authentic English Translation for Accurate and Unbiased Understanding Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5History of Western Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: Six Translations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of Loving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Experiencing God (2021 Edition): Knowing and Doing the Will of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Allegory of the Cave Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Emancipated Spectator
17 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is a set of five essays in response to Ranciere's earlier work "The Ignorant Schoolmaster." All of these pieces are tied together by Ranciere's attempt to overcome the dyad so often associated with modernist aesthetics of passive spectator/active seer. The title essay extends the concept set forth in "The Ignorant Schoolmaster" by suggesting that the knowledge gap between the educated teacher and the student should be given up in place for an "equality of knowledge." The goal of this is not to turn everyone into a scholar, however. As Ranciere says, "It is not the transmission of the artist's knowledge or inspiration to the spectator. It is the third that is owned by no one, but which subsists between them, excluding any uniform transmission, any identity of cause and effect" (15). This is by far the most cogent and understandable of the essays in the collection, and it offers an interesting suggestion in rethinking the space between the actor and viewer, teacher and student, or any other relationship. However, it struck me as the kind of idea most at home in the world of theory, one that might not be well-translated into praxis. The second essay, "The Misadventures of Critical Thought," Ranciere criticizes the traditional role of the spectator by claiming that it, even though a mode of criticism itself, it "reproduces its own logic." He looks at photos from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Vietnam, by Martha Rosler and Josephine Meckseper. Some people do not want to view these graphic photographs, however that very refusal perpetuates and continues the logic of the war in the first place. Therefore, a critical stance toward the image needs to shift away from this approach toward the uncoupling of two logics, "the emancipating logic of capacity and the critical logic of collective inveiglement" (48). The last essay, "The Pensive Image," sustains a further opening up between the formalist opposition of the active and passive. Ranciere argues for a shift - again, what he argues to be an emancipating shift - away from the "unifying logic of action" toward "a new status of the figure" (121). The end of pensiveness (of being, literally, "full of thought") lies between narration and expression, one the mode of the active artist, the other of the passive spectator who fixes upon the artistic vision in order to impart to it a kind of reality. Like a lot of (post)modern Continental writing, Ranciere's writing can be elliptical, and his arguments somewhat hard to follow, perhaps because they are difficult to sustain, however engaging. I chose this because it was short enough and seemed like a suitable introduction to his body of work. The essays were interesting and provocatively argued, but sometimes they seemed less than original: for example, the title essay really seems to add nothing to the old breaking apart of the bipolar opposition of active and passive in theatre, art, and political conscientiousness; it recapitulates it nicely, but imports nothing new to the conversation. Those looking for ways to re-imagine issues in contemporary aesthetics will find something new here (as well as penetrating discussions of the poetry of Mallarme and the films of Abbas Kiarostami), but it will unnecessarily frustrate the casual reader.