Forms of formless knowledge
Time after (In)Completion. Goran Sergej Pristaš*
by
Althusser looks back in time. The silent discourse of incomplete work, as opposed to open work, appears in time and not place; it appears as a recapitulation. Because, to quote Althusser, if the object of theatre is “to set in motion the immobile, the eternal sphere of the illusory consciousness” of the mythical world, then the play is really the development, the production of a new consciousness in the spectator; “incomplete, like any other consciousness, but moved by this incompletion itself, this distance achieved, this inexhaustible work of criticism in action; the play is really the production of a new spectator, an actor who starts where the performance ends, who only starts so as to complete it, but in life.” The completion of the performance starts post-hoc, in after-thought, in Nachdenken.
*Pristaš has proposed a reading of two texts by Louis Althusser: “On Brecht and Marx” (1968) and “Notes on a Materialist Theatre: The ‘Piccolo Teatro’, Bertolazzi and Brecht” (1967). Please contact bulegoa@bulegoa.org for a copy of the texts.
Goran Sergej Pristaš. Dramaturgist, co-founder and member of BADco., performing arts collective. He is Associate Professor at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb and was program coordinator in the Zagreb Centre for Drama Art (CDU) from 1995 to 2007 and the first editor-in-chief (1996-2007) of Frakcija, magazine for the performing arts. Co-editor, with Bojana Cvejić, of Parallel Slalom. A Lexicon Of Non-aligned Poetics, TkH, Belgrade/ CDU, Zagreb, 2013. Pristas is one of the founders of the project Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000. His projects and collaborations (BADco., Frakcija) have been exhibited at Venice Biennale 2011, Documenta 12, ARCO and numerous festivals and conferences.
*This “Forms of formless knowledge” session has been produced in collaboration with Azala, where Goran Sergej Pristaš will lead the research laboratory “The Death of the Spectator” from 3rd to 4th July, 2013.
