TERO NAUHA

Artist & researcher

SCHIZOPRODUCTION: ARTISTIC RESEARCH AND PERFORMANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF IMMANENT CAPITALISM

DOCTORAL RESEARCH. Acta Scenica 45 (2016)

Abstract

In the written part of my doctoral research, I am presenting the artistic works and set them in a larger context, which I have entitled immanent capitalism. This is an artistic research, where the artworks, their processes or workshops produce knowledge, which will not be fully translatable to a written form. The artworks are performances, live-art projects and works on video. In the presentation of the context, I am presenting the transformations that has taken place starting from the industrialism and modernism, and which have recently been incorporated with new forms of labour and economy. These forms are often referred as cogni- tive capitalism, affective labour, post-Fordism and neoliberal market economy. I am presenting this context in relation with artistic practice and such concepts or phenomena as trauma, relationality, affect and neuroplasticity. The starting point and the hub of my research are schizoanalysis, which was developed by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Jean Oury. In my research I am regarding schizoana- lysis in relation with the economy, artistic practice and the paradigmatic change of forms of labour. At the end of the written part, I reflect artistic practice and the artistic works with in relation to immanent capitalism. I present a critique toward the presumed hegemony of capitalism from the point of view of artistic research and I am giving an argument counter to the philosophical assertions of schizoanalysis. In this way, my intention is to produce models for thinking and practice, where artistic practice and research may adhere a function of a critical tool against the presumed immanence of capitalism.

The written part has a form of an architectonical drawing of a building, which has two floors. At first, I give a cross-section of the structure, which is followed by the first ‘floor’. In the first floor I present the starting points and question for my performance art practice and artistic research, and this floor includes the description of the artistic works and the processes, which are related with this research in chronological order. The works, which are presented here, are: Loop Variation (2008), Tell me about your machines (2012), Life in Bytom (2012),

The Astronomer: Experiment (2013) and finally a description of the project Man- a-machine: schizoproduction (2014).

In the second floor, I am presenting the theoretical discourses of the research. It begins from the presentation of the conjunction with industrialism, avant-gar- de and the concept of trauma, which follows a presentation of the relationship between the immaterial labour, artistic practice, relationality and the concepts of affect and neuroplasticity. This part concludes with a presentation of the schizoanalytic practice and theory.

The third part is called Foyer, in which I will provide a critical argument both towards the theoretical apparatus presented above and towards my artistic practice and the projects, also. I will present the intricate conjunction between the schizoproduction and immanent capitalism, the function of a heretical prac- tice in artistic practice, the relation between knowledge and knowing and I will conclude in the critique of relationality, processuality and co-operation. In my argument, these three concepts are essentially connected with the philosophy of immanent capitalism.

At the end of the written part of my doctoral research, I conclude with argu- ments on the possibility for departure, exit or heresy through artistic practice in the context of immanent capitalism.

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