Art=life? Deleuze, badiou and ontology of the human

Abstract

The idea of the relation between art and life as becoming-life of art is a consequence of specific modern developments ranging from the Enlightenment to capitalism. This assemblage of thought and practice is present in one of the most dominant art forms today, and the task of this paper is to reassess the current state of affairs in art considering that the current state of affairs in art is a symptom of the global society of control. In order to be emancipatory art, on the one hand, Art presupposes de-substantialization and deessentialization of the biopolitically formed life and the category of Man, while on the other hand it also presupposes a new „generic in-humanum“ (in Badiou), that is, a people to come (in Deleuze) as the basis of politicity. Hence, emancipatory art needs to break away with the human in order to reach that which is beyond the current democratic materialism.

Keywords

• Badiou
• Deleuze
• ontology
• life
• art
• human
• biopolitics