5 Required Reading 01

I II III IV V
zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 124
124
96 –111 ‟A certain frustration…” — Paradoxes, Voids, Perspectives in Artistic Research Today
Giaco Schiesser
112 –123 Falter, Stutter, Grope — On the Stick as Universal Tool
Nils Röller
Eavesdropping on Theory: à partir de là…

Elke Bippus, Jörg Huber,
Roberto Nigro
138 –143 Initiatives and Projects by Students – 15 Advertisements
Franziska Koch & Maria Eichhorn
24.1.2012 13:13:35 Uhr

The terms theory and practice are commonly treated as
irreconcilable opposites. Over the course of thirteen years the
ith (Institut für Theorie) has shown that all theories of
Zurich University of the Arts, Yearbook 4 (2012), compiled by Christoph Brunner, Giaco Schiesser, Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 124–137.
practice are in themselves a form of practice.1 With a view

to the practice and performance of theory the following arti-
cle will explore the questions that arise at the point de
départ of a theory initiative: How is a theory project devised,
in: Practices of Experimentation. Research and Teaching in the Arts Today, ed. Department of Art & Media.
and how is it launched? How do the ideas move and what

forces are at play? And what claims to validity are connected
with these factors? The context is the longstanding yet
Elke Bippus, Jörg Huber, Roberto Nigro: "Eavesdropping on Theory: à partir de là…".
nonetheless fresh and invariably unsupported experience

gathered during the establishment, experimental testing, and
development of a theoretical piece of work at an art academy.
In this case the theme is the development of a theory of
aesthetics in combination with teaching and researching artis-
tic and theoretical practice and reflection.
First step: The theory of aesthetics is the key phrase here.

This refers to a currently disputed field of discourse: it is nei-
ther philosophy, nor cultural theory, nor the discipline of
a theory of art; as a “grand theory” it is no longer contempo-
rary, and while it is at play everywhere as an aesthetic
component in the sciences, it is not explicitly explored; in the
Franziska Koch & Maria Eichhorn
university context it is virtually neglected. In addition, aes-

thetics is not to be separated from social and political theory.
Second step: In order to open up such wide-ranging subject

matter with the necessary precision we selected the key
phrase aesthetic apparatus. The term apparatus allows us to
grasp the phenomenal situation, which we have selected as
the site of an investigation, both terminologically and
conceptually.2 It also provides us with directions on the method
and specific procedure to be employed, as well as allowing us
1 For the corresponding projects and publications see: www.ith-z.ch.

2 Drawing on Agamben, Foucault, and Deleuze, the apparatus can be
considered as “a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses,
institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative
measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic proposi-
tions—in short, the said as much as the unsaid. The apparatus itself is the system
of relations that can be established between these elements.” Foucault, Michel:
Power/Knowledge, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980, p. 194.
125
zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 125 24.1.2012 13:13:35 Uhr

Elke Bippus, Jörg Huber, Roberto Nigro
to reflect on our own position (at a university, as research-
ers/teachers and agents of theory etc.) from this standpoint.
As defined by the term apparatus, aesthetic practice
is understood as social practice that produces the correspond-

ing social and political effects
Third step: A piece of work on aesthetic theory is a practice

guided by phenomena. Phenomena expose themselves. We

focus on observable exposures and their genealogies, i.e. in-
stitutionally, historically framed phenomena. We develop the
theoretical work as a collaboration between different players

from practice and theory, an interplay in which each respective
self is understood as both a stage and an aesthetic apparatus.
Fourth step: At the present time, the intention is to reveal

the project apparatus through the discussion of specific terms.
In this spirit, the three authors of this article—who also
initiated the “Theorie der Asthetik” (Theory of Aesthetics)
project—instituted a reading of the book Listening by
Jean-Luc Nancy in the form of a three-way e-mail circular
that forms the continuation of this text.3
Jörg: I would like to start with a distinction that Nancy makes

at the beginning of his thoughts on Listening and which
simultaneously links them to the question of the limits of phi-
losophy (and theory). We can distinguish between two
auditory modalities: listening (eavesdropping) and hearing.
The philosopher hears, i.e. he focuses on the sense (of
the senses), while listening opens up to the sensuous (of the
sense). This differentiation becomes clearer with the recogni-
tion that the conceptual and the intelligible, to which the
philosopher is dedicated, is more closely connected to the vis-
ual, with its ostentations and the production of evidence,
while listening represents a form of retreat, a passivity and
receptiveness that opens up to the ring, the resonance,
the vibrations.
One could describe this division within the sense of
hearing as a distinction between two attitudes or tensions:
3 Nancy, Jean-Luc: Listening, New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
126

a “normal” attitude that happens, i.e. listening, eavesdropping;
and a tense, intentional attitude, i.e. hearing, active listen-
ing. The decisive factor is that the two areas that mark
this distinction mutually penetrate one another, subordinating

or superimposing themselves. In respect of philosophy
—the business of dealing with what is intelligible, and with
sense—one could say that every utterance contains/touches
hearing as the imparting of sense (I hear the message)

and listening (I eavesdrop on the sound). A sound underlies
the statement of sense. “[P]erhaps it is necessary that sense
not be content to make sense (or to be logos), but that it

want also to resound. My whole proposal will revolve around
such a fundamental resonance, even a resonance as a
foundation, as a first or last profundity of ‘sense’ itself (or
of truth).”4
Theory and philosophy resound, or smell, or taste, just
as Luhmann experienced theories as colorful. And it is precise-
ly this “timbre” at the root or at the edges of sense that
is to be explored here. Maybe we should begin with the term
resonance. With the re- of resonance: a cleavage that
indicates a distance and a return: a sound resounds in space,
it resounds again, also in the body of the listener. A space of
references, of (re-)referentiality, the sensing of oneself in
listening: in sensing the resonance. Listening as an act of sub-
jectification: “A subject feels: that is his characteristic and
his definition.”5
Roberto:My first step in engaging with the text would be to

point out what I see as a danger in Nancy’s book and in
your commentary. I hear your words: J’entends, i.e. I hear,
I understand. However, the production of evidence could
also be wrong: maybe I do not hear very well or not as
one should be understood. For this reason my reaction could
be completely wrong. But this is precisely where the
problem lies.
In various texts—from De Anima to his Ethics—Aris-
totle describes various stages ascending from sensation
4 Ibid., p. 6.
5 Ibid., p. 9.
127

(the sensuous) to cognition and the intelligible. Without
doubt, pure cognition, intelligible cognition, is the kingdom
of the philosopher and the idea (logos, reason) for him. As
we know, Foucault opposed this hierarchization of the senses

(incidentally, Aristotle effectively privileged sight over the
other senses) with Nietzsche’s model and his reference to in-
stinct. Maybe this can provide us with a path that is no
longer phenomenological, but opens up a philosophy of expres-

sion and the sign, with which we would have arrived at
Deleuze’s philosophy.
According to Deleuze, Nietzsche’s most universal

undertaking was to inject the categories of meaning and value
into philosophy. In point of fact the category of value
implies a critical upheaval. For the critical factor is the value
of values, the valuation from which their value emerges,
consequently the problem of their creation. Sense is the result
of connecting different elements that of themselves are
not significant; sense is an optical effect, a linguistic effect, a
positional effect. Nietzsche allows the discursive and non-
discursive modalities of the production and circulation of sense
to be thought, as opposed to the interpretation of sense.
A new picture of thinking and the philosopher emerges here.
With Proust, for example, thinking is no longer guided by a
conscious “I” in possession of free will, but by involuntary,
unconscious, unintended forces. Thinking is an effect of ma-
chines, in the sense that it is not dependent on individuals,
bodies, persons. When we come to our theme we can say
that the tone, the sound is independent, i.e. it is not a specific
quality of a body. Or more precisely, it is not connected to
a specific body.
Pierre Boulez recognized that Proust had detached
sounds and tones from the people in his work. Sounds and
tones become autonomous motifs. From this perspective we
are positioned within a philosophy of expression and the
sign, in which a hierarchy between perception (visual dimen-
sion), audibility, and “sayability” is no longer possible, for
signs are all that exist. The problem would be to understand
in which structure each sign is inscribed.
I ask myself, when I read your initial thoughts and your
emphasis on Nancy’s distinction between two auditory mo-
dalities, whether Nancy doesn’t remain within a phenomeno-
logical perspective (from which we can perhaps learn a great
128

deal—I don’t know), through which he can conceptualize
the sense of hearing and listening as modalities that facilitate
a direct connection to the sensuous.
However, in contrast, would a philosophy of expression

and the sign not enable us to think the singularity of the event
which constitutes the production of sense? In other words:
wouldn’t it allow us to understand that one can also hear the
light, or see a tone, if I can just mention Nancy’s references

to Wagner at this point. Thus the logic of the sensuous would
not establish a hierarchy of the senses between hearing, say-
ing, seeing, emotional feeling, and instinctive feeling; instead,

as in the case of Madelaine in Proust’s Recherche, a smell
would recall a landscape. But maybe we are completely suc-
cumbing to a literary symbolism with this… (once more!).
Elke: I would like to deal with Roberto’s objection while initial-

ly staying with Nancy. The terms used by Roberto, “model”
and opposed, appear to me to contradict Nancy’s method and
way of thinking. He does not oppose anything, instead he
moves, for example, away from phenomenology, which
has continued the epistemological primacy of vision with
terms such as eidos and Wesensschau (seeing the essence),
by weaving and linking, crossing out the hierarchy of the
senses bit by bit.6 Nancy unsettles the prevalence of vision
and appearance, which equates to that philosophy that
examines and rests on the isomorphism between the visual and
the conceptual levels, by stating that the philosopher “neu-
tralizes listening within himself, so that he can philosophize.”7
Listening unhinges something of the “theoretical and in-
tentional scheme tuned to optics.”8 According to Nancy this
is why the philosopher appears to seek the neutralization
of listening. Through listening one enters a space that simul-
taneously permeates oneself. Nancy examines this eaves-
dropping, this state of being all ears, in place of a philoso-
phizing that, in accordance with the register of the visual and
6 On the primacy of vision in philosophy and the subordination of listening

see Schmicking, Daniel: Hören und Klang, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann,
2003.
7 Ibid., p. 1.
8 Ibid., p. 14.
129

conceptual, allows clear distinctions between subject and
object, inside and outside, etc.
It may be correct that Nancy does not go beyond the
philosophy of Deleuze or Nietzsche. However—triggered by

your comments—I see a distinction that I would like us to
discuss. In my opinion, Nancy is not concerned with a philos-
ophy of expression and sign. He does not derail the hierarchy
of the senses by claiming everything to be a sign; rather

I would propose that he carries out ontological work with the
sign: he “looks beyond present usages”9 of écoute and
eavesdrops or is “all ears” in order—paradoxically formulated

—to hear the sound (for he hears and he philosophizes,
but by disturbing the visual, conceptual regime rather than by
referring to it), which allows him to think what it means
to exist according to the sense of hearing. In these reflections
Nancy takes an (ontological) route with the intention of
returning to “being as resonance,” to a “resonant subject, an
intensive spacing of a rebound.” The subject of listening
is consequently “not a phenomenological subject. This means
that he is not a philosophical subject, and, finally, he is perhaps
no subject at all.”10 In my opinion, what is exciting about
Nancy’s approach is that he disorientates the apparatus of the
senses, and beyond that, changes the regime of sense.
Roberto, my question to you here is whether Deleuze, with his
singularity of the event, doesn’t remain within the visual,
conceptual apparatus? In contrast, I would argue that Nancy
develops a conceptual scheme, in order then to discard it.
For this reason I don’t know whether I agree with you, Jörg,
that listening is an attitude or tension “that happens.”
Doesn’t Nancy actually describe listening as an active listen-
ing, albeit not as listening to “what can arise from silence
and provide a signal or a sign,” but as listening to music in
which meaning is offered up in the sound itself.11
Roberto, a further question from my side addresses
your understanding of sign and expression in relation to
embodiment, sonorous materiality, or the manifestation of
9 Ibid., p. 4.
10 Ibid., p. 21-22.
11 Ibid., p. 6.
130

the speaking body, terms that Nancy uses.12 Why do you
assume that Nancy regards the sense of hearing and listening
as the most ostensible form? It is quite the opposite. Doesn’t
he write that the form is carried away by sound, without

dissolving it; it enlarges it, and gives it an amplitude, a density,
a vibration. “The sonorous […] outweighs form.”13 For me,
this description evokes completely different images to those
of expression and sign, which conform to the logic of re-

presentation. Here I would like to proceed to Nancy’s explora-
tion of the rhythm and order of affects, where, once again,
he disorientates and links familiar elements of the apparatus

that have arisen from the visual, conceptual register.14
Jörg: I agree with Elke that Nancy writes an ontology of the

senses without placing them on a hierarchy and limiting
himself to a phenomenological subjectivity, and in this sense I
would like to shift the emphasis from the question of the
senses to that of sense. In the process, I would like to recon-
nect to the question of feeling self, which was articulated
in the conclusion to my start, and make reference to a further
passage from Nancy.15
The self reference which takes place in listening is not
a reference to “me,” as Nancy explicitly points out, nor to
the “self” of an other. It is not about the presence of a subject
but rather about the “relationship in self,” that forms a
“self.” The self is never, and this applies here too, something
“available […] to which one can be ‘present,’ but precisely
the resonance of a return [renvoi].” (Not subject but subjecti-
fication, not self but self-formation). Therefore listening
is not about an “access to self,” but the “reality of this access,”
which is “consequently indissociably ‘mine’ and ‘other,’
‘singular’ and ‘plural,’ as much as it is ‘material’ and ‘spiritu-
al’ and ‘signifying’ and ‘a-signifying.’ ”16
This addresses a specific spatial temporality. Sound
opens up space-time, which is “omnidimensional”; it does not
12 Ibid., p. 29.
13 Ibid., p. 1.
14 Ibid., p. 38.
15 Ibid., p. 12.
16 Ibid.
131

create a present, that is, but a “coming and a passing, an
extending and a penetrating.”17 A continual multifarious refer-
ral. A between, a “with,” which we encountered in Nancy’s
“Mit-Sein” (Being With) on the occasion of our exploration of

the theme of community.18 Here he writes: “Sense consists
only in referring from one or several to one or several others.
And equally from itself to itself, under the condition that
this ‘self’ presents itself to itself as an other—and that is the

precondition of the body. The body is this outside, through
which I can return a change in myself to myself, which
can come equally from my body or the other bodies around

it.” This is called a sensation: And this is the first stage
of sense.”19
Meaning presents itself in sensation, in references
from bodies (bodies that sound and resonate: musical instru-
ments, rooms, bodies of the listeners...). Sense not as
meaning but as what preceded it; not hearing but listening,
eavesdropping, receiving, and feeling. Sound and not
(yet) music. Nancy also develops this connection, to memo-
rable effect, in his text “The Forgetting of Philosophy.”20
Here he emphasizes that meaning is an opening up to an ar-
rival (a coming and a passing: see above) and not a closure,
called meaning. Accordingly, sense proceeds “between us and
not between signifier, signified, and referent.”21 Sense hap-
pens, it is an opening—to feel it is to “allow,” “to anticipate”;
a type of receptiveness, passivity. This is also what I meant
(to you, Elke) when I wrote that “normal” listening happens,
as opposed to intentional listening. When listening, eaves-
dropping we are in sense—I hope that “makes” sense...
Elke: I am happy to take up the question of sense and in

particular I would like to concentrate on the complex of refer-
ral and space in order to reflect on the self/subject and
17 Ibid., p. 13.
18 Nancy, Jean-Luc: “Mit-Sein,” in “MIT-SEIN”: Gemeinschaft – ontologische
und politische Perspektivierungen, Bippus, Elke, Huber, Jörg, Richter, Dorothee
(eds.), Voldemeer Verlag: Zurich / Springer Verlag: Vienna, New York, 2010.
19 Ibid., p. 24.
20 Nancy, Jean-Luc: “The Forgetting of Philosophy,” in The Gravity of
Thought, Amherst: Humanity Books, 1999.
21 Ibid, p. 92.
132

listening. Nancy links sense and sound by stating that they
both share the space of the referral. In the process he defines
space as “the space of a self, a subject.” In turn, the self
is defined as “a form or function of referral.”22 In my opinion,

space, self/subject, and referral initially correspond with
the register of phenomenology and established categories of
sense. However, Nancy then goes on to state that access
to self always means access “to the form or structure of self

as such, that is to say, to the form, structure, and movement
of an infinite referral.”23 He chooses a different method
to that of “a watch [guet] in the sense of a visual surveillance”

and deprives the self of the visual, which corresponds with the
“imaginary capture,” in order to link it to the sonorous,
which can be thought of as symbolic referral.24 Nancy inte-
grates the self—thought of as the resonance of a referral
—into an aesthetic apparatus, which is not oriented on the
autonomous subject, the self, on manifestations of the
intentional and discursive, but which also pays tribute to non-
discursive practices.25
I consider Nancy’s procedure of modulating those rela-
tions of forces in which we commonly think the self/subject
to be central for our undertaking of thinking aesthetic theory
in such a way that life forms or the processual aspect can be
incorporated, and which aims, within and with the practice of
aesthetic theory, to transgress applied orientations (i.e.
those supposedly based on facts) and change social practice.
By locating subjectification in the apparatus of sound, and
thus linking it to listening, Nancy not only reacts to and ana-
lyzes subjectification, but also produces and transforms it.
According to Nancy, when listening the self enters a space and
is permeated by it: “it opens up in me as well as around me,
and from me as well as toward me.” As a result other sensibil-
ities for subjectification are brought into play: listening,
that is a “sharing,” “inside/outside, division and participation,
de-connection and contagion.”26
22 Nancy, Jean-Luc: Listening, p. 8.

23 Ibid., p. 9.
24 Ibid., p. 10.
25 Ibid., p. 12.
26 Ibid., p. 14.
133

Nancy’s re-figuration of the self is not a reversal of the
intentional subject, quite the opposite. In his perspectivation
—no, even in his eavesdropping—the self is connected to
sense, albeit in a specific manner. According to Nancy, the

possibility of resonance, of sonority—the sonorous is
determined as “a complex of returns (renvois) whose binding
is the resonance or ‘sonance’ of sound”—is identical with
the possibility of sense.27 “More precisely, the perceived possi-

bility of sense […] is overlaid with the resonant possibility
of sound: that is, when all is said and done, with the possibility
of an echo or a return of sound to self in self.”28 “But this also

signifies that sense consists first of all, not in a signifying
intention but rather in a listening, where only resonance comes
to resound […] Sense reaches me long before it leaves me,
even though it reaches me only by leaving in the same
movement.”29 In poststructuralist theory construction, sense
and referral are connected with terms applied to text,
texture, and discourse. Non-discursive practices are integrat-
ed through the turn to listening. What effect does this
movement from discourse to apparatus have? Is this not a
central nodal point from which to clarity the aesthetic
apparatus?
Roberto: In a very friendly manner (which I value greatly), it

has been pointed out to me that I—like the majority of
philosophers—always react with the same figures and accord-
ingly, a preformed vocabulary, whenever I have material
(text, image, etc.) in front of me, or a question etc. I value the
criticism greatly, as it allows me to question a crystallized
and unconscious attitude and perhaps, through the work of the
self on itself, change my own ontology. In order to free
philosophers from the weight of the critique, I would like to as-
sume the burden of a further critique: I had not really noticed
—it was so unconscious! However, doesn’t being in an act
actually involve misconceiving it? —that my answers are gen-
erally drawn from a pool of historical knowledge. This
historical torsion, which is without doubt an error of subjecti-
27 Ibid., p. 16.
28 Ibid., p. 30.
29 Ibid.
134

fication, a lack of (self-)education that requires correction,
presents us with a problem. However, it is a problem from
which I intend to develop a number of remarks. It is not my in-
tention to explore psychoanalytical (or personal) problems

here. That would be of no interest in this connection. How-
ever, that which I have imprecisely named historical torsion is
an economical means of posing another question, i.e. the
question of practices (in which historical knowledge is inscribed

as a possible form of discursive practice) and/or experiences.
How do practices and experiences arise? How do we recog-
nize them? I think that is a central question in philosophy or in

cognitive experience, and one that also impacts on the ques-
tion of the apparatus (the aesthetic apparatus).
How does this relate to the discussion we have begun?
Put succinctly: I am in complete agreement with
you. With everything. You have explained to me what I failed
to hear in Nancy. I am also in complete agreement with
Nancy. I read his book with passion (I remember the pleasure
it gave me reading his book in the library: I saw and heard
something that I had not experienced before).
However, Nancy poses such radical (ontological) ques-
tions that I am forced to ask another (fundamental?) ques-
tion: what is the purpose of such an analysis? I don’t want to
be misunderstood. In this connection the question what
is the purpose does not play the same role as, for instance, the
question what is the purpose of “A la recherché du temps
perdu”? could play. It is not like the question what is the pur-
pose of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony?, or what is the
purpose of “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe?” It could also be the case
that these works say nothing to me (that they don’t speak
to me). I could also be completely ignorant (lacking in
experience)—that wouldn’t be a scandal! However, in the case
of Nancy’s book something else is at stake: his book speaks
to me. I would say it talks a lot. There is almost an excess of
meaning. And perhaps it is this excess that forces me to ask:
what is the purpose? I repeat: not what is the purpose
because I am questioning the literary beauty of the text. The
text resounds in space and within me. But that is not every-
thing. You (possibly) agree with me that Nancy the “philoso-
pher” intends that I hear something with his text. It is for
this reason I ask: what can I hear with it? What problems can
we explore in extrapolating from his reflections?
135

Nancy is explicit: he says to be in listening (être à
l’écoute) should be interpreted as an ontological tonality (to-
nalité ontologique). Être à l’écoute as being in the world
(être au monde). I wouldn’t say that a question as to the na-

ture of the fundamental ontology is being posed here, but
we are not far from it: Being (existence) in accordance with
the nature of listening (Exister selon l’écoute: to exist
through listening). Jörg is entirely correct in reminding us of

the dimension of the being with in relation to the theme
of community. We are in the world in accordance with listen-
ing, just as we are in the world as being with. The question

is to understand what experience the truth of this ontological
sensibility brings with it. It would be difficult to oppose
Nancy. That wouldn’t make any sense. It is true that a subject
feels, hears, touches, sees him- or herself… (“A subject feels:
that is his characteristic and his definition.”30 —although
I am not entirely sure whether we are really talking of the sub-
ject here, or whether we should. Is it a subject that feels
itself, etc., or is it the body, my physicality? A subject and a
subjectification is a broad experience which cannot be
reduced to the body. There is a subject function just as there
is an author function, even beyond spatial and temporal
limits; beyond the limits of what a logic of the sensuous (the
senses) can establish. But that is a detail. I don’t want to
play with words. We can agree on this).
What Nancy describes very well is this subjectification
process; the play with limits, the infinite returns (renvoi
infini) through which the subject forms himself. The subject
refers itself to itself as an object. It is defined by temporality;
temporality is the dimension of the subject. It is precisely
this alteration of subjectivity (the fact that the subject is
always separated from others and itself) that defines subjec-
tification.
How could I disagree with this? You have also success-
fully shown me that Nancy moves away from phenome-
nology: The subject of listening is consequently not a phenom-
enological subject. This means that he is “not a philosophical
30 Ibid., p. 9.
136

subject, and, finally, he is perhaps no subject at all.”31 The
subject as the site of resonance. Jörg underlines: “The self is
never, and here too, something available […] to which
one can be present, but precisely the resonance of a return

[renvoi].
And if I remember correctly, Nancy also mentions the
body as resonance chamber (le corps comme caisse ou
tube de résonance). He even goes so far as to say: le corps

sans organes, the body where only resonance resounds.
Although, on the one hand, I am very receptive to
this, on the other, I ask myself why we should retain a function

of this kind as the starting point of the analysis. It seems
to me as though the body, the subject, had been emptied of
everything (intentionality etc.): that is very good, for it
has been reduced to a function, une caisse de resonance, the
site where the resonance resounds. It is (perhaps) like the
stage of a theatre: ever ready to receive a scene, to become a
scene. However, I ask myself, what is the use of retaining
a function like this?, We have discarded everything, and justi-
fiably so. Why should we retain this stage, a subject as
resonance (as the starting point of the analysis)? What does
the precondition of this ontological dimension bring us?
Is it not precisely this cul-de-sac of (fundamental) on-
tology from which we should free ourselves when we pose
the question of the apparatus? We see the line. But shouldn’t/
mustn’t we (perhaps) pose the question of the apparatuses
and the practices, in order to cross the line; in order to
understand how the resonance functions, what and how it pro-
duces in each case, what and how it can produce something
else? Shouldn’t/mustn’t we replace/augment the onto-
logical question of listening by the genealogical question con-
cerning listening as a singular event?
31 Ibid., p. 22.
137

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p. 246 FREYMOND-Guth Fine Arts will be made according to standard
Project Manager Paper Ltd., p.234 ? practice.
Christoph Brunner Demeter Dünndruck (how to prove my birth?), p. 245
le partage, p. 235 Machoverlag, Copyright
Graphic Design Typeface p. 244 New Jerseyy, p. 236 Paloma © 2012 the artists and authors
Jonas Voegeli, Benjamin Roffler, CMU Bright Presents, p. 243 Plan B Film GmbH, © 2012 bei den Bild- und
Gina Donzé p. 237 radio arthur, p. 242 Senior Textautoren
www.voegelivoegeli.ch Design Factory, p. 238 Style Wars 2, © for this edition / für diese Ausgabe
www.hubertus-design.ch p. 241 Tauschhandel, p. 239 2012 Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess
Vegan Kitchen and Bakery, p. 247 AG, Zürich
Copyediting Wildtierarchitektur, p. 161–166
Tradukas GbR: Nicola Morris Marianne Mueller, p. 157 Publisher
Adrian Schiess/2012, ProLitteris, Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG
Translations Zürich, p. 152/153 Hannes Rickli, Niederdorfstrasse 54
Tradukas GbR: Nina Hausmann, p. 212/213 Germán Toro-Pérez CH-8001 Zürich
Nicola Morris, Melanie Newton; Switzerland
Ina Goerz, Steven Lindberg, Cover Image
Colin Shepherd, Frank Süßdorf, Jojakim Cortis & Adrian Sonderegger Department of Art & Media, DKM /
Mark Willard “Les Verrières 1871”, Bourbaki Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK
Panorama, Lambda Print, 2005 Ausstellungsstrasse 60
1.2.2012 11:35:55 Uhr
CH-8005 Zürich
All other images Schweiz / Switzerland
the respective artists dkm.zhdk.ch

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I II III IV V

Eavesdropping on Theory: à partir de là…

24.1.2012 13:13:35 Uhr

practice are in themselves a form of practice.1 With a view

and how is it launched? How do the ideas move and what

nonetheless fresh and invariably unsupported experience

First step: The theory of aesthetics is the key phrase here.

university context it is virtually neglected. In addition, aes-

Second step: In order to open up such wide-ranging subject

1 For the corresponding projects and publications see: www.ith-z.ch.

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 125 24.1.2012 13:13:35 Uhr

is understood as social practice that produces the correspond-

Third step: A piece of work on aesthetic theory is a practice

guided by phenomena. Phenomena expose themselves. We

theoretical work as a collaboration between diﬀerent players

Fourth step: At the present time, the intention is to reveal

Jörg: I would like to start with a distinction that Nancy makes

3 Nancy, Jean-Luc: Listening, New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 126 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

this distinction mutually penetrate one another, subordinating

hearing as the imparting of sense (I hear the message)

not be content to make sense (or to be logos), but that it

Roberto:My ﬁrst step in engaging with the text would be to

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 127 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

we know, Foucault opposed this hierarchization of the senses

longer phenomenological, but opens up a philosophy of expres-

According to Deleuze, Nietzsche’s most universal

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 128 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

However, in contrast, would a philosophy of expression

light, or see a tone, if I can just mention Nancy’s references

ing, seeing, emotional feeling, and instinctive feeling; instead,

Elke: I would like to deal with Roberto’s objection while initial-

6 On the primacy of vision in philosophy and the subordination of listening

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 129 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

philosophy of Deleuze or Nietzsche. However—triggered by

of the senses by claiming everything to be a sign; rather

eavesdrops or is “all ears” in order—paradoxically formulated

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 130 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

he write that the form is carried away by sound, without

of expression and sign, which conform to the logic of re-

he disorientates and links familiar elements of the apparatus

Jörg: I agree with Elke that Nancy writes an ontology of the

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 131 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

“Mit-Sein” (Being With) on the occasion of our exploration of

this ‘self’ presents itself to itself as an other—and that is the

can come equally from my body or the other bodies around

Elke: I am happy to take up the question of sense and in

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 132 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

is deﬁned as “a form or function of referral.”22 In my opinion,

to self always means access “to the form or structure of self

to that of “a watch [guet] in the sense of a visual surveillance”

22 Nancy, Jean-Luc: Listening, p. 8.

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 133 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

sense, albeit in a speciﬁc manner. According to Nancy, the

the possibility of sense.27 “More precisely, the perceived possi-

of an echo or a return of sound to self in self.”28 “But this also

Roberto: In a very friendly manner (which I value greatly), it

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 134 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

tention to explore psychoanalytical (or personal) problems

question of practices (in which historical knowledge is inscribed

nize them? I think that is a central question in philosophy or in

zhdk_DEF_E_jtv_PF.indd 135 24.1.2012 13:13:36 Uhr

(être au monde). I wouldn’t say that a question as to the na-

through listening). Jörg is entirely correct in reminding us of