Keti Chukhrov is a guest professor at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe. In 2016-2023 she was an associate professor and then full professor the School of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow). In 2023-2024 she was the Tage Danielsson guest professor and the Linköping University, Sweden. In 2012-2017 she has been the head of Theory and Research department at the National Center of Contemporary Art, Moscow. Chukhrov has authored numerous texts on art theory, culture, politics, and philosophy. Her postdoctoral dissertation dealt with the anthropology and ontology of performativity. Her full-length books include: "Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism" (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), "To Be—To Perform. ‘Theatre’ in Philosophic Critique of Art" (Spb: European Un-ty, 2011), and "Pound &£" (Logos, 1999) and a volume of dramatic writing: "Just Humans" (2010). In 2017-19 she has been a Marie Sklodowska fellow in UK. Her present research interests and publications deal with 1.the impact of non-surplus economy on the epistemes of historical socialism, with 2. performance studies and 3. Institutional and bureaucratic issues of contemporary art production in global context. With her video-play “Love-machines” she participated at the Bergen Assembly and “Specters of Communism” (James Gallery, CUNY, NY, 2015). Her Latest video-play “Communion” was in the program of the Kansk video film festival (Moscow, 2016) and at the Ljubljana Triennial U-3 “Beyond the Globe (2016, cur. B. Groys). Her video-play Undead was featured at the Steirischer Herbst 2022.
The paper maps the polit-economic divergences between autocracy and democracy in the post-Social... more The paper maps the polit-economic divergences between autocracy and democracy in the post-Socialist transition, with the survey of the following issues: 1. What caused the crisis of emancipation theories after Feb. 24, 2022. 2. THe NATO issue.3. THe variegated use of surplus value in autocracy and democracy. 4. Three factors in the electoral support of post-Socialist autocracies.
The article analyses how the unconscious Putinism functioned in cultural politics during the last... more The article analyses how the unconscious Putinism functioned in cultural politics during the last 20 years in those institutions which considered themselves independent and autonomous. It inspects the political technologies - used in state cultural politics - which apply linguistic and semantic manipulations to intercept cultural production and appropriate the activities of even those cultural agents which never planned to collaborate with state.
Unlike numerous critical texts that question the ethical and institutional characteristics of Ily... more Unlike numerous critical texts that question the ethical and institutional characteristics of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dau project, in this paper I explore the project’s genesis as a cultural and ideological phenomenon. I reveal the project’s bonds with its cultural predecessors, such as theatre directors Anatoly Vasiliev, Boris Yukhananov, writers Yuri Mamleev and Vladimir Sorokin, composer Vladimir Martynov. I research not only the study of Soviet totalitarianism in Dau (which the project meticulously reenacts) but also the genealogy of dissident and postsocialist non-conformist cultural codes, which, despite their critique of totalitarianism, often fall into the trap of reproducing those totalitarian features. Mapping artistic devices used in Dau, the paper then focuses at length on the issues of power distribution in the organization of performative process enacted by the project’s participants.
This conversation between Keti Chukhrov and Mat Callahan in the journal "Socialism and Democracy"... more This conversation between Keti Chukhrov and Mat Callahan in the journal "Socialism and Democracy" touches upon the principal themes tackled in Chukhrov's book 'Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism" (2020, University of Minnesota Press): the impact of the abolished private property on culture, economics, sexuality and value production in historical socialism; as well as the polit-economic comparison between the mistrust to the concepts of common good, the ideal, culture, the Universal, language, labor, consciousness - in the post-Althusserian thought, and the materialist reconstitution of the same concepts in the socialist thought of the 1960-s and 1970-s respectively (Vygotsky, ILyenkov, Lifshitz, Mamardashvili). The conversation transcends the West - East juxtaposition to map the divergences in the idea production in the socialist and capitalist socialities.
Данный текст является перевод одноименной статьи, опубликованной в Radical Philosophy, 2020. В с... more Данный текст является перевод одноименной статьи, опубликованной в Radical Philosophy, 2020. В статье рассматриваются предпосылки мысли, опирающейся на современную теорию вычисления (Реза Негарестани, Лючана Паризи), чтобы показать, как в сходной ситуации — в 1960-х годах в СССР, когда кибернетические исследования претендовали на роль новой философской дисциплины, — социалистическая мысль, ключевым примером которой послужили труды Эвальда Ильенкова, выработала свои радикальные воззрения на то, что такое разум и почему невозможна его алгоритмическая эмуляция.
Bigger than Myself. Eds. Z. Badovinac, G. Ferracci. Fondazione MAXXI, 2021. P. 148-70. , 2021
The paper inspects the discussions about the artificial reconstruction of human mind and consciou... more The paper inspects the discussions about the artificial reconstruction of human mind and consciousness and suggests considering the human condition as a philosophic, political and artistic farewell to theocracy, revealing its impact in present post-secular tendencies in theory and culture. Special focus is made on Derrida's analysis of Decartes' cogito as rather insanity than rationality and Ilyenkov's interpretation of consciousness as of other-than-itself.
В статье исследуются пост-концептуальные процессы в современном искусстве и критической теории в ... more В статье исследуются пост-концептуальные процессы в современном искусстве и критической теории в контексте пост-секулярных и техно-оккультных тенденций. В риторике авангарда, усвоенной современным искусством, художественное достижение определялось главным образом через социальную ангажированность: после этапа самоотрицания в искусстве, его основной целью, казалось бы, стала социальная вовлеченность. Однако, несмотря на освоение социально ориентированного наследия авангарда, начиная с 1960-х годов, главной эпистемой искусства становится концептуальный избыток (surplus), а не социальная вовлеченность. Негативный, антисоциальный характер и генеалогия «зла», присущая искусству начиная с раннего модернизма, способствовали различным манипуляциям с этим концептуальным избытком, который в итоге превратился в прибавочную стоимость – в «метафизический индекс» – в рамках экономики искусства - по выражению Дидриха Дидрихсена. Вне зависимости от того, является ли это концептуальное добавление когнитивной уловкой, символическим капиталом, усиливающим культурное воздействия произведения искусства, или монетизированной абстракцией, которая просто увеличивает стоимость искусства, оно, в условиях современности, функционирует как скрытая сила искусства, которая спрятана под маской его «добрых» и эмансипаторных чаяний. Однако, что произойдет с искусством как институтом современности, если присущий ему дух самоотрицания и ориентация на концептуальный избыток будут разрушены постконцептуальными, постсекулярными киберфантазиями?
This paper explores the materialist and the object-based dimension of 'the ideal' in Evald Ilyenk... more This paper explores the materialist and the object-based dimension of 'the ideal' in Evald Ilyenkov's thought and, consequently, his speculative technique of converging matter and idea. The philosophic figures that Ilyenkov relies on to legitimate such a convergence are Hegel, Spinoza and Marx. The paper reveals the complexities in Ilyenkov's task to reconcile his dialectics of the ideal with Spinoza's studies of Substance, tracing the discrepancies in Ilyenkov's attempt to conjoin Hegelian and Marxian dialectics and Spinoza's non-idealist immanentism. Ilyenkov managed to reveal that Hegel's idealism was grounded in an objective materialism conditioned by the other-determined self, and merely needed Marx's thought to complete the socialization of Subject; whereas Spinoza never truly needed to theorize the concept of the ideal. The key finding of the paper is in tracing how due to developing Marxist epistemology out of Marxist political economy - Ilyenkov manages to consider social being and labor through noumenal parameters, proving that any material activity can be seen as thought-oriented.
Contemporary art has always been at the forefront of artistic practices that venture to replace a... more Contemporary art has always been at the forefront of artistic practices that venture to replace aesthetic narratives with social activism. In this text, however, we will examine the theater"s rejection of its own aesthetic methods and expressive idioms in the name of "direct" democracy, as well as the sociopolitical and artistic effects of these experiments. Has the notorious sacrifice of dramatization (i.e., the theatrical episteme per se) in post-dramatic theatrical practices proven politically effective and aesthetically radical? In the paper the post-dramatic practices of theater are juxtaposed to the "theatre of theatre", in which, - paradoxic as it might seem, - conceptualization and self-reflection intensify the dramatic merits.
In its four parts – “Political Economy”, Sexuality”, “Aesthetics” and “Philosophy” – the book unr... more In its four parts – “Political Economy”, Sexuality”, “Aesthetics” and “Philosophy” – the book unravels the epistemes generated by socialist society and political economy and witnesses the extent to which certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted—the zones of anti-capitalist critique in continental thought since 1960-s, institutions of civil society and present theoretical provisions of emancipation — are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition. By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.
Cовременное искусство всегда находилось в авангарде тех художественных практик, которые пытались... more Cовременное искусство всегда находилось в авангарде тех художественных практик, которые пытались заменить эстетический нарратив социальным активизмом. Однако в этом тексте нас будет интересовать, каким образом отказ от собственных эстетических методов и языков выражения во имя «прямой» демократии осуществлялся в театре и к каким социально-политическим и художественным эффектам привели эти эксперименты. Оказалось ли пресловутое жертвование драматизацией (т.е. собственной театральной эпистемой) в постдраматических театральных практиках эффективным политически и радикальным эстетически?
Пытаясь заимствовать практики contemporary art, cовременный театр, быть может, идет по ложному пути. В тексте пост-драматическим практикам противопоставляется "театр театра", в котором парадоксальным образом концептуализация и саморефлексия ведут к усилению драматизации.
A Pleasant Apocalypse: Notes from the Grand Hotel Abyss: Steirischer Herbst '19. Ed. E. Degot, 2020
The paper traces the vicious bond of emancipatory rhetoric with enjoyment. Many would insist that... more The paper traces the vicious bond of emancipatory rhetoric with enjoyment. Many would insist that even communism is a site of accomplished desires or simply a state of collective bliss, and certainly not the hard work of organizing the politics of the common good. The Platonic notion of the “common good” has itself been split into the “common” and the “good.” Critical discourse and subversive practices always embraced the common, the “commons,” and even “communization.” The good, on the other hand, acquired the connotations of a controlled governing order or a patriarchal regime linked to state power, the authoritarian establishment of law, the restriction of liberties, or the abolishing of pleasure.The paper discerns how the apologia of libertinist ethics is mistaken for emancipation and supercedes it and why numerous artistic and theoretic initiatives refuse to heed the uncanny aspects of subjugation in sex-work.
В статье противопоставляются два программных текст 1930-х годов "Автор как производитель" Беньями... more В статье противопоставляются два программных текст 1930-х годов "Автор как производитель" Беньямина и "Исток художественного творения" Хайдеггера, чтобы показать как в контексте современного искусства отражаются эти две тенденции - революционно-левая поэтика производства, в которой произведение становится -со-отношением и действием (Беньямин), и традиционалистская критика эстетики в лице Хайддегера, для которого произведение выявляет суть вещи. В первом случае произведение стремиться стать "отношением" и определяется средствами производства; во втором оно остается "вещью" и характеризуется его способностью к истинностной процедуре. Но если у Беньямина произведение пост-онтологично, то у Хайдеггера произведение - еще раньше бытия, более вечно, чем само бытие. В статье делается попытка показать как отказ от ауратизации и эстетики ведет к концептуализму, эстетике отношений и перформативной социальной инженерии. В тексте критически анализируется пост-беньяминовская тенденция эстетизировать и ауратизировать пост-эстетические практики минимализма и концептуализма (например в работах Жоржа Диди-Юбермана).
Gender Check. Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe, Walter Koenig, 2010
This essay from the catalogue (2010) for the Gender Check exhibition (2009, MUMOK museum, Vienna)... more This essay from the catalogue (2010) for the Gender Check exhibition (2009, MUMOK museum, Vienna), investigates how socialist ideology told on the gender dispositions in the Soviet Union and what were the developments of body politics after the demise of socialism. It questions the assumptions about the gender equality in the socialist conditions as being the neutralization of gender differences and claims that universality and differentiation might not contradict each other.
Статья является новой редакцией предисловия к книге Адорно "Философия новой музыки" (2001). В тре... more Статья является новой редакцией предисловия к книге Адорно "Философия новой музыки" (2001). В трех ее подглавах 1. "Немецкий 'дух' (Шенберг) и романская 'форма' (Cтравинский), 2. "Мистическая поэтика Веберна" и 3. "Делез: Додекафония как шизофрения" проанализированы мотивы Теодора Адорно, заставившие его столь резко противопоставить две эстетические стратегии, которые сформировали музыкальную композицию XX века: нововенскую (Шёнберг, Берг и Веберн) и неоклассицистическую в лице Стравинского. И хотя формально Адорно не отдает предпочтения ни одной из них, он, безусловно, выступает в роли апологета австро-немецкой традиции. Обе эти альтернативы наследуют кризису, в котором оказалась постромантическая музыка к началу XX века. В статье демонстрируется как, несмотря на радикальность нового метода додекафонии, новым венцам (Шенбергу, Бергу, Веберну) удается сохранить основу австро-немецкого музыкального стиля - запрос на идею и возвышенное, в эпоху когда идеократичность в музыке и поэзии уступила место работе с медиумом и формализму.
Данный текст (как и тексты ряда исследователей в НЛО №138) посвящен аналитическому методу Валерия... more Данный текст (как и тексты ряда исследователей в НЛО №138) посвящен аналитическому методу Валерия Подороги (так как он представлен в его книгах "Мимезис" и "Антропограммы"), с помощью которого он воссоздавал миметическую, антропологическую и чувственную карту Произведения. Кризис мимезиса совпал со многими видами кризиса - кризисом наук о духе, отказом от образа в искусстве, от драматизации и катарсиса в театре, от мелодии и лада в музыке. Практики подобия были отвергнуты как эстетически устаревшие. Сегодня понятие художественного образа звучит как анахронизм. Однако, художественный образ это не оптическая категория. Образ - топология события, которая артикулируется через чувственное, нетеоретическое (миметическое) подключение к миру в Произведении. В конце текста дан комментарий на него самого Валерия Александровича Подороги
The paper (with its three sub-chapters: 1.Zero Degree of Body, 2. Zero Degree of Gender, and 3. Z... more The paper (with its three sub-chapters: 1.Zero Degree of Body, 2. Zero Degree of Gender, and 3. Zero Degree of Media) inspects the performatist conceptualism of VALIE EXPORT, and analyzes how the radical iconoclasm in the spheres of body politics, gender, media, enables to re-code the most poignant aspects of sociality. VALIE EXPORT incorporated in her studies radical actionism, investigations of femininity, new media , photo experiments, film. EXPORT's radical experiments can be described as the practice of expanding boundaries, rather than the transgressive overcoming of them. While many performances of the 1960s and 70s had a declarative character, marking the expressionistic and transgressive investigations of feminism and sexuality, VALIE EXPORT's explorations of sexuality could not be reduced to the feminist appeal to discover the true feminine sovereignty and pleasure. Nor do we find here the call for a matriarchal pro-tomythology - a pre-Platonic cave not yet inhabited by a philosopher. Investigating the empirical data available for her body, VALIE EXPORT relies on transcendental categories. In other words, her female body and its signifiers become the tool for resolving complex theoretical , political and aesthetic tasks.
The Object of Comedy. Philosophies and Performances. Eds. Gregor Moder, Jamila Mascat. Palgrave Macmillan., 2020
The paper traces the focal points in the artistic method of OBERIU (Ob'edinenie realnogo iskusst... more The paper traces the focal points in the artistic method of OBERIU (Ob'edinenie realnogo iskusstva, Union or Real Art) member Alexander Vvedensky. Written in the most ruthless years of Stalin's regime - when the OBERIU group was totally marginalized and under the risk of arrests - Vvedensky's poetry and dramaturgy achieve the heights of rigorous humor. In them eschatology and catastrophe evolve into anarchic play, which paradoxically, instead of depression, articulates almost athletic energy. Vvedensky's poetics undermines not only the semiological coherence of language, but also the conventional anthropology of enunciation, inventing a fantastic nonsensical semantics, which is not simply an absurdity, but a philosophic discovery of excessive being and added time of performance despite and after death. It is exactly in the proximity of death that the tropes of humor and laughter emerge to their utmost. If for Beckett the temporality of the catastrophe causes a complete anemia of action and proposition , Vvedensky's catastrophe conversely becomes a form of paradoxical and joyous after-life, surpassing the end fo the world; it is the temporality and ontology of idiots who leap out the dead world and arrest time due to the rigorous incapacity to comply with the apocalyptic mood. The chapter divines Vvedensky's crucial methods enabling to exert such an effect.
The paper is a critical study of the post-conceptual paths in art and theory, including its post... more The paper is a critical study of the post-conceptual paths in art and theory, including its post-secular and techno-occult routes. In avant-garde rhetoric, as appropriated by contemporary art, the ideas of social engagement and artistic achievement have been almost identical: after art’s self-sublation, its principal goal has supposedly been social engagement. Yet despite the internalization of the avant-garde’s socially oriented legacy, the true episteme and achievement of art since the 1960s has been conceptual surplus rather than social involvement. The negative antisocial character and vicious genealogy inherent to art since early modernist practices fostered various manipulations of this conceptual surplus, which eventually turned into the surplus value—the “metaphysical index”—of art’s economics, as Diedrich Diederichsen puts it. Regardless of whether this surplus is a cognitive gimmick, symbolic capital , or a financialized abstraction simply increasing the cost of art, it has functioned as a hidden power of contemporary art, and has been effectively disguised by art’s emancipatory intentions. But what happens to art as an institution of contemporaneity if its codex of self-sublation and the logic of conceptual surplus are demolished by post-secular, post-conceptual cyber-fantasies?
Present theories of computation and artificial intelligence often declare philosophical speculati... more Present theories of computation and artificial intelligence often declare philosophical speculation obsolete altogether, since it fails to provide any precise knowledge regarding the most significant contemporary scientific and technological concerns. If post-structuralism doubted the power of philosophy because of its proximity to the sciences and their own discrete discourses, contemporary 'post-philosophies', by contrast, refuse philosophy because of its insufficient knowledge of science and technology. 1 Two principal contemporary post-philosophical tendencies stand out in this regard. The first is found in cognitivist theories, which posit philosophy as a quasi-mythological narrative that produces fictitious non-scientific notions such as transcendentality, metaphysics, idea, dialectics, the universal or truth. 2 Another tendency is more subtle. It posits algorithimic creativity itself as a philosophical procedure. Here, in the works of Luciana Parisi and Reza Negarestani, among others, we come across a series of elaborate standpoints for reconstituting the tasks of philosophy after and as a result of computation. In this article I intend to consider how in a similar situation-when, in the Soviet 1960s, cybernetic studies were claimed as the new philosophical discipline - a communist thought, exemplified here by the writings of Evald Ilyenkov, developed its own militant postulates of what reason is, and why its algorithmic emulation would be impossible.
The paper maps the polit-economic divergences between autocracy and democracy in the post-Social... more The paper maps the polit-economic divergences between autocracy and democracy in the post-Socialist transition, with the survey of the following issues: 1. What caused the crisis of emancipation theories after Feb. 24, 2022. 2. THe NATO issue.3. THe variegated use of surplus value in autocracy and democracy. 4. Three factors in the electoral support of post-Socialist autocracies.
The article analyses how the unconscious Putinism functioned in cultural politics during the last... more The article analyses how the unconscious Putinism functioned in cultural politics during the last 20 years in those institutions which considered themselves independent and autonomous. It inspects the political technologies - used in state cultural politics - which apply linguistic and semantic manipulations to intercept cultural production and appropriate the activities of even those cultural agents which never planned to collaborate with state.
Unlike numerous critical texts that question the ethical and institutional characteristics of Ily... more Unlike numerous critical texts that question the ethical and institutional characteristics of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Dau project, in this paper I explore the project’s genesis as a cultural and ideological phenomenon. I reveal the project’s bonds with its cultural predecessors, such as theatre directors Anatoly Vasiliev, Boris Yukhananov, writers Yuri Mamleev and Vladimir Sorokin, composer Vladimir Martynov. I research not only the study of Soviet totalitarianism in Dau (which the project meticulously reenacts) but also the genealogy of dissident and postsocialist non-conformist cultural codes, which, despite their critique of totalitarianism, often fall into the trap of reproducing those totalitarian features. Mapping artistic devices used in Dau, the paper then focuses at length on the issues of power distribution in the organization of performative process enacted by the project’s participants.
This conversation between Keti Chukhrov and Mat Callahan in the journal "Socialism and Democracy"... more This conversation between Keti Chukhrov and Mat Callahan in the journal "Socialism and Democracy" touches upon the principal themes tackled in Chukhrov's book 'Practicing the Good. Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism" (2020, University of Minnesota Press): the impact of the abolished private property on culture, economics, sexuality and value production in historical socialism; as well as the polit-economic comparison between the mistrust to the concepts of common good, the ideal, culture, the Universal, language, labor, consciousness - in the post-Althusserian thought, and the materialist reconstitution of the same concepts in the socialist thought of the 1960-s and 1970-s respectively (Vygotsky, ILyenkov, Lifshitz, Mamardashvili). The conversation transcends the West - East juxtaposition to map the divergences in the idea production in the socialist and capitalist socialities.
Данный текст является перевод одноименной статьи, опубликованной в Radical Philosophy, 2020. В с... more Данный текст является перевод одноименной статьи, опубликованной в Radical Philosophy, 2020. В статье рассматриваются предпосылки мысли, опирающейся на современную теорию вычисления (Реза Негарестани, Лючана Паризи), чтобы показать, как в сходной ситуации — в 1960-х годах в СССР, когда кибернетические исследования претендовали на роль новой философской дисциплины, — социалистическая мысль, ключевым примером которой послужили труды Эвальда Ильенкова, выработала свои радикальные воззрения на то, что такое разум и почему невозможна его алгоритмическая эмуляция.
Bigger than Myself. Eds. Z. Badovinac, G. Ferracci. Fondazione MAXXI, 2021. P. 148-70. , 2021
The paper inspects the discussions about the artificial reconstruction of human mind and consciou... more The paper inspects the discussions about the artificial reconstruction of human mind and consciousness and suggests considering the human condition as a philosophic, political and artistic farewell to theocracy, revealing its impact in present post-secular tendencies in theory and culture. Special focus is made on Derrida's analysis of Decartes' cogito as rather insanity than rationality and Ilyenkov's interpretation of consciousness as of other-than-itself.
В статье исследуются пост-концептуальные процессы в современном искусстве и критической теории в ... more В статье исследуются пост-концептуальные процессы в современном искусстве и критической теории в контексте пост-секулярных и техно-оккультных тенденций. В риторике авангарда, усвоенной современным искусством, художественное достижение определялось главным образом через социальную ангажированность: после этапа самоотрицания в искусстве, его основной целью, казалось бы, стала социальная вовлеченность. Однако, несмотря на освоение социально ориентированного наследия авангарда, начиная с 1960-х годов, главной эпистемой искусства становится концептуальный избыток (surplus), а не социальная вовлеченность. Негативный, антисоциальный характер и генеалогия «зла», присущая искусству начиная с раннего модернизма, способствовали различным манипуляциям с этим концептуальным избытком, который в итоге превратился в прибавочную стоимость – в «метафизический индекс» – в рамках экономики искусства - по выражению Дидриха Дидрихсена. Вне зависимости от того, является ли это концептуальное добавление когнитивной уловкой, символическим капиталом, усиливающим культурное воздействия произведения искусства, или монетизированной абстракцией, которая просто увеличивает стоимость искусства, оно, в условиях современности, функционирует как скрытая сила искусства, которая спрятана под маской его «добрых» и эмансипаторных чаяний. Однако, что произойдет с искусством как институтом современности, если присущий ему дух самоотрицания и ориентация на концептуальный избыток будут разрушены постконцептуальными, постсекулярными киберфантазиями?
This paper explores the materialist and the object-based dimension of 'the ideal' in Evald Ilyenk... more This paper explores the materialist and the object-based dimension of 'the ideal' in Evald Ilyenkov's thought and, consequently, his speculative technique of converging matter and idea. The philosophic figures that Ilyenkov relies on to legitimate such a convergence are Hegel, Spinoza and Marx. The paper reveals the complexities in Ilyenkov's task to reconcile his dialectics of the ideal with Spinoza's studies of Substance, tracing the discrepancies in Ilyenkov's attempt to conjoin Hegelian and Marxian dialectics and Spinoza's non-idealist immanentism. Ilyenkov managed to reveal that Hegel's idealism was grounded in an objective materialism conditioned by the other-determined self, and merely needed Marx's thought to complete the socialization of Subject; whereas Spinoza never truly needed to theorize the concept of the ideal. The key finding of the paper is in tracing how due to developing Marxist epistemology out of Marxist political economy - Ilyenkov manages to consider social being and labor through noumenal parameters, proving that any material activity can be seen as thought-oriented.
Contemporary art has always been at the forefront of artistic practices that venture to replace a... more Contemporary art has always been at the forefront of artistic practices that venture to replace aesthetic narratives with social activism. In this text, however, we will examine the theater"s rejection of its own aesthetic methods and expressive idioms in the name of "direct" democracy, as well as the sociopolitical and artistic effects of these experiments. Has the notorious sacrifice of dramatization (i.e., the theatrical episteme per se) in post-dramatic theatrical practices proven politically effective and aesthetically radical? In the paper the post-dramatic practices of theater are juxtaposed to the "theatre of theatre", in which, - paradoxic as it might seem, - conceptualization and self-reflection intensify the dramatic merits.
In its four parts – “Political Economy”, Sexuality”, “Aesthetics” and “Philosophy” – the book unr... more In its four parts – “Political Economy”, Sexuality”, “Aesthetics” and “Philosophy” – the book unravels the epistemes generated by socialist society and political economy and witnesses the extent to which certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted—the zones of anti-capitalist critique in continental thought since 1960-s, institutions of civil society and present theoretical provisions of emancipation — are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition. By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.
Cовременное искусство всегда находилось в авангарде тех художественных практик, которые пытались... more Cовременное искусство всегда находилось в авангарде тех художественных практик, которые пытались заменить эстетический нарратив социальным активизмом. Однако в этом тексте нас будет интересовать, каким образом отказ от собственных эстетических методов и языков выражения во имя «прямой» демократии осуществлялся в театре и к каким социально-политическим и художественным эффектам привели эти эксперименты. Оказалось ли пресловутое жертвование драматизацией (т.е. собственной театральной эпистемой) в постдраматических театральных практиках эффективным политически и радикальным эстетически?
Пытаясь заимствовать практики contemporary art, cовременный театр, быть может, идет по ложному пути. В тексте пост-драматическим практикам противопоставляется "театр театра", в котором парадоксальным образом концептуализация и саморефлексия ведут к усилению драматизации.
A Pleasant Apocalypse: Notes from the Grand Hotel Abyss: Steirischer Herbst '19. Ed. E. Degot, 2020
The paper traces the vicious bond of emancipatory rhetoric with enjoyment. Many would insist that... more The paper traces the vicious bond of emancipatory rhetoric with enjoyment. Many would insist that even communism is a site of accomplished desires or simply a state of collective bliss, and certainly not the hard work of organizing the politics of the common good. The Platonic notion of the “common good” has itself been split into the “common” and the “good.” Critical discourse and subversive practices always embraced the common, the “commons,” and even “communization.” The good, on the other hand, acquired the connotations of a controlled governing order or a patriarchal regime linked to state power, the authoritarian establishment of law, the restriction of liberties, or the abolishing of pleasure.The paper discerns how the apologia of libertinist ethics is mistaken for emancipation and supercedes it and why numerous artistic and theoretic initiatives refuse to heed the uncanny aspects of subjugation in sex-work.
В статье противопоставляются два программных текст 1930-х годов "Автор как производитель" Беньями... more В статье противопоставляются два программных текст 1930-х годов "Автор как производитель" Беньямина и "Исток художественного творения" Хайдеггера, чтобы показать как в контексте современного искусства отражаются эти две тенденции - революционно-левая поэтика производства, в которой произведение становится -со-отношением и действием (Беньямин), и традиционалистская критика эстетики в лице Хайддегера, для которого произведение выявляет суть вещи. В первом случае произведение стремиться стать "отношением" и определяется средствами производства; во втором оно остается "вещью" и характеризуется его способностью к истинностной процедуре. Но если у Беньямина произведение пост-онтологично, то у Хайдеггера произведение - еще раньше бытия, более вечно, чем само бытие. В статье делается попытка показать как отказ от ауратизации и эстетики ведет к концептуализму, эстетике отношений и перформативной социальной инженерии. В тексте критически анализируется пост-беньяминовская тенденция эстетизировать и ауратизировать пост-эстетические практики минимализма и концептуализма (например в работах Жоржа Диди-Юбермана).
Gender Check. Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe, Walter Koenig, 2010
This essay from the catalogue (2010) for the Gender Check exhibition (2009, MUMOK museum, Vienna)... more This essay from the catalogue (2010) for the Gender Check exhibition (2009, MUMOK museum, Vienna), investigates how socialist ideology told on the gender dispositions in the Soviet Union and what were the developments of body politics after the demise of socialism. It questions the assumptions about the gender equality in the socialist conditions as being the neutralization of gender differences and claims that universality and differentiation might not contradict each other.
Статья является новой редакцией предисловия к книге Адорно "Философия новой музыки" (2001). В тре... more Статья является новой редакцией предисловия к книге Адорно "Философия новой музыки" (2001). В трех ее подглавах 1. "Немецкий 'дух' (Шенберг) и романская 'форма' (Cтравинский), 2. "Мистическая поэтика Веберна" и 3. "Делез: Додекафония как шизофрения" проанализированы мотивы Теодора Адорно, заставившие его столь резко противопоставить две эстетические стратегии, которые сформировали музыкальную композицию XX века: нововенскую (Шёнберг, Берг и Веберн) и неоклассицистическую в лице Стравинского. И хотя формально Адорно не отдает предпочтения ни одной из них, он, безусловно, выступает в роли апологета австро-немецкой традиции. Обе эти альтернативы наследуют кризису, в котором оказалась постромантическая музыка к началу XX века. В статье демонстрируется как, несмотря на радикальность нового метода додекафонии, новым венцам (Шенбергу, Бергу, Веберну) удается сохранить основу австро-немецкого музыкального стиля - запрос на идею и возвышенное, в эпоху когда идеократичность в музыке и поэзии уступила место работе с медиумом и формализму.
Данный текст (как и тексты ряда исследователей в НЛО №138) посвящен аналитическому методу Валерия... more Данный текст (как и тексты ряда исследователей в НЛО №138) посвящен аналитическому методу Валерия Подороги (так как он представлен в его книгах "Мимезис" и "Антропограммы"), с помощью которого он воссоздавал миметическую, антропологическую и чувственную карту Произведения. Кризис мимезиса совпал со многими видами кризиса - кризисом наук о духе, отказом от образа в искусстве, от драматизации и катарсиса в театре, от мелодии и лада в музыке. Практики подобия были отвергнуты как эстетически устаревшие. Сегодня понятие художественного образа звучит как анахронизм. Однако, художественный образ это не оптическая категория. Образ - топология события, которая артикулируется через чувственное, нетеоретическое (миметическое) подключение к миру в Произведении. В конце текста дан комментарий на него самого Валерия Александровича Подороги
The paper (with its three sub-chapters: 1.Zero Degree of Body, 2. Zero Degree of Gender, and 3. Z... more The paper (with its three sub-chapters: 1.Zero Degree of Body, 2. Zero Degree of Gender, and 3. Zero Degree of Media) inspects the performatist conceptualism of VALIE EXPORT, and analyzes how the radical iconoclasm in the spheres of body politics, gender, media, enables to re-code the most poignant aspects of sociality. VALIE EXPORT incorporated in her studies radical actionism, investigations of femininity, new media , photo experiments, film. EXPORT's radical experiments can be described as the practice of expanding boundaries, rather than the transgressive overcoming of them. While many performances of the 1960s and 70s had a declarative character, marking the expressionistic and transgressive investigations of feminism and sexuality, VALIE EXPORT's explorations of sexuality could not be reduced to the feminist appeal to discover the true feminine sovereignty and pleasure. Nor do we find here the call for a matriarchal pro-tomythology - a pre-Platonic cave not yet inhabited by a philosopher. Investigating the empirical data available for her body, VALIE EXPORT relies on transcendental categories. In other words, her female body and its signifiers become the tool for resolving complex theoretical , political and aesthetic tasks.
The Object of Comedy. Philosophies and Performances. Eds. Gregor Moder, Jamila Mascat. Palgrave Macmillan., 2020
The paper traces the focal points in the artistic method of OBERIU (Ob'edinenie realnogo iskusst... more The paper traces the focal points in the artistic method of OBERIU (Ob'edinenie realnogo iskusstva, Union or Real Art) member Alexander Vvedensky. Written in the most ruthless years of Stalin's regime - when the OBERIU group was totally marginalized and under the risk of arrests - Vvedensky's poetry and dramaturgy achieve the heights of rigorous humor. In them eschatology and catastrophe evolve into anarchic play, which paradoxically, instead of depression, articulates almost athletic energy. Vvedensky's poetics undermines not only the semiological coherence of language, but also the conventional anthropology of enunciation, inventing a fantastic nonsensical semantics, which is not simply an absurdity, but a philosophic discovery of excessive being and added time of performance despite and after death. It is exactly in the proximity of death that the tropes of humor and laughter emerge to their utmost. If for Beckett the temporality of the catastrophe causes a complete anemia of action and proposition , Vvedensky's catastrophe conversely becomes a form of paradoxical and joyous after-life, surpassing the end fo the world; it is the temporality and ontology of idiots who leap out the dead world and arrest time due to the rigorous incapacity to comply with the apocalyptic mood. The chapter divines Vvedensky's crucial methods enabling to exert such an effect.
The paper is a critical study of the post-conceptual paths in art and theory, including its post... more The paper is a critical study of the post-conceptual paths in art and theory, including its post-secular and techno-occult routes. In avant-garde rhetoric, as appropriated by contemporary art, the ideas of social engagement and artistic achievement have been almost identical: after art’s self-sublation, its principal goal has supposedly been social engagement. Yet despite the internalization of the avant-garde’s socially oriented legacy, the true episteme and achievement of art since the 1960s has been conceptual surplus rather than social involvement. The negative antisocial character and vicious genealogy inherent to art since early modernist practices fostered various manipulations of this conceptual surplus, which eventually turned into the surplus value—the “metaphysical index”—of art’s economics, as Diedrich Diederichsen puts it. Regardless of whether this surplus is a cognitive gimmick, symbolic capital , or a financialized abstraction simply increasing the cost of art, it has functioned as a hidden power of contemporary art, and has been effectively disguised by art’s emancipatory intentions. But what happens to art as an institution of contemporaneity if its codex of self-sublation and the logic of conceptual surplus are demolished by post-secular, post-conceptual cyber-fantasies?
Present theories of computation and artificial intelligence often declare philosophical speculati... more Present theories of computation and artificial intelligence often declare philosophical speculation obsolete altogether, since it fails to provide any precise knowledge regarding the most significant contemporary scientific and technological concerns. If post-structuralism doubted the power of philosophy because of its proximity to the sciences and their own discrete discourses, contemporary 'post-philosophies', by contrast, refuse philosophy because of its insufficient knowledge of science and technology. 1 Two principal contemporary post-philosophical tendencies stand out in this regard. The first is found in cognitivist theories, which posit philosophy as a quasi-mythological narrative that produces fictitious non-scientific notions such as transcendentality, metaphysics, idea, dialectics, the universal or truth. 2 Another tendency is more subtle. It posits algorithimic creativity itself as a philosophical procedure. Here, in the works of Luciana Parisi and Reza Negarestani, among others, we come across a series of elaborate standpoints for reconstituting the tasks of philosophy after and as a result of computation. In this article I intend to consider how in a similar situation-when, in the Soviet 1960s, cybernetic studies were claimed as the new philosophical discipline - a communist thought, exemplified here by the writings of Evald Ilyenkov, developed its own militant postulates of what reason is, and why its algorithmic emulation would be impossible.
Under the accelerated conditions of digital cybernetic capitalism once again social and ecologica... more Under the accelerated conditions of digital cybernetic capitalism once again social and ecological problems are proposed to be solved by technology. The inherent vision is the final victory of reason in the form of automated rationality. Accordingly, a technoscientific mindset attempts to supersede philosophy. If in cognitivism, philosophy was regarded as an obsolete cognitive practice, the recent research on the essence of artificial intelligence (Parisi, Negarestani) calls for reclaiming philosophic thought, but confines it mainly to the realm of computation. In this context, the critique of cybernetics and technical essentialism by Evald Ilyenkov (1924-1979) seems to be of particular relevance. 40 years after his death Ilyenkov's apologia of philosophic gnoseology and dialectical logic becomes of utmost importance amidst the contemporary debates to 'finalise' philosophy. In our workshop we take the lead from two texts by Ilyenkov to discuss the role of philosophy in face of the above-mentioned predicaments: The Mystery of the Black Box and Cosmology of the Spirit. We want to understand in how far these texts, as reactions to a similar mindset in another context, might still provide important clues to inform alternative perspectives on thought and consequently for future developments. The workshop will bring together scholars from cultural and media studies, art and political theory, and the history and philosophy of science. Participants include: Siyaves Azeri (U Nancy), Keti Chukhrov (HSE Moscow / Marie Curie Fellow,
From Feb.9 2016 to Feb.28 2017 the NCCA sector of Theoretical Studies in cultural Anthropology " ... more From Feb.9 2016 to Feb.28 2017 the NCCA sector of Theoretical Studies in cultural Anthropology " ran the research program " Paths of Performativity ". Curator – Sc.D in philosophy Keti Chukhrov. The goal of the program was to map the borders and watersheds between the institutes of performative practices as against the present amorphous convergence of all modes of processualitites and activities in public space under the term " Performance ". The program aimed not merely to define the contexts of performativity, but to explore the epistemological social and ethical ruptures in the way performative practices are exerted in various forms of art and social activity: in philosophic critique of aesthetics, in social semiology, gender theory.
В данное издание вошли избранные статьи из I (и пока
единственного) тома книги Пьера Булеза «Орие... more В данное издание вошли избранные статьи из I (и пока единственного) тома книги Пьера Булеза «Ориентиры. Воображать». Выбор статей ориентирован на представление связи между композиторскими техниками XX века, критикой нововенской школы (додекафонии) и поэтикой сериализма. Переведенные работы демонстрируют приоритеты Булеза по отношению к музыке и искусству в целом. Книга рассчитана на широкий круг читателей, интересующихся проблемами современной музыки и предварена предисловием составителя К. Чухров "От серии к расширяющейся вселенной".
Издательство Европейского Университета в Санкт-Петербурге, 2011
Книга посвящена анализу понятия «театр» в ряде важнейших эстетический теорий, в которых театр опр... more Книга посвящена анализу понятия «театр» в ряде важнейших эстетический теорий, в которых театр определяет горизонт не только художественных практик, но и самой философии – он задает и регулирует методы философской гносеологии и онтологии и превращает само мышление в своеобразную перформативную топологию. Автор предлагает рассмотреть театр и современное искусство как два разных художественно-политических проекта современности. В работе исследуется антропология исполнительских практик, рассматриваются различные режимы «повторения» в процессуальности исполнения. Одним из главных контекстов книги является философская топология театральности Жиля Делеза, а также осмысление им категории различия, повторения и события. Помимо Делеза в книге рассматриваются теории перформативности Ф. Ницше, Р. Вагнера, Ч.С. Пирса, Ж. Деррида, М. Хайдеггера, Ж.Ф. Лиотара, Дж. Агамбена, В. Подороги.
Быть и исполнять. Театр в философской критике искусства. Европейский Университет, 2011
This is the chapter from the book "To Be to Perform. Theatre in Philosophic Critique of Art" publ... more This is the chapter from the book "To Be to Perform. Theatre in Philosophic Critique of Art" published by the European University Publishers, Saint-Petersburg, 2011 (In Rus). It accounts for how Derrida applies his principal concept of Differance to exert the critique of representation, accidentality of performative procedures, and develop the "aesthetics" of a secret, unperformable and the ineffable. He posits such defiance of performative procedures as the critique of metaphysics taking as his allies Ch.S. Peirce and Antonin Artaud. The Paper attempts to dispute these arguments, confronting them by Peirce's and Artaud's practices of effectuation.
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Papers by Keti Chukhrov
In the paper the post-dramatic practices of theater are juxtaposed to the "theatre of theatre", in which, - paradoxic as it might seem, - conceptualization and self-reflection intensify the dramatic merits.
By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.
Пытаясь заимствовать практики contemporary art, cовременный театр, быть может, идет по ложному пути. В тексте пост-драматическим практикам противопоставляется "театр театра", в котором парадоксальным образом концептуализация и саморефлексия ведут к усилению драматизации.
Кризис мимезиса совпал со многими видами кризиса - кризисом наук о духе, отказом от образа в искусстве, от драматизации и катарсиса в театре, от мелодии и лада в музыке. Практики подобия были отвергнуты как эстетически устаревшие. Сегодня понятие художественного образа звучит как анахронизм. Однако, художественный образ это не оптическая категория. Образ - топология события, которая артикулируется через чувственное, нетеоретическое (миметическое) подключение к миру в Произведении. В конце текста дан комментарий на него самого Валерия Александровича Подороги
VALIE EXPORT incorporated in her studies radical actionism, investigations of femininity, new media , photo experiments, film. EXPORT's radical experiments can be described as the practice of expanding boundaries, rather than the transgressive overcoming of them. While many performances of the 1960s and 70s had a declarative character, marking the expressionistic and transgressive investigations of feminism and sexuality, VALIE EXPORT's explorations of sexuality could not be reduced to the feminist appeal to discover the true feminine sovereignty and pleasure. Nor do we find here the call for a matriarchal pro-tomythology - a pre-Platonic cave not yet inhabited by a philosopher. Investigating the empirical data available for her body, VALIE EXPORT relies on transcendental categories. In other words, her female body and its signifiers become the tool for resolving complex theoretical , political and aesthetic tasks.
In avant-garde rhetoric, as appropriated by contemporary art, the ideas of social engagement and artistic achievement have been almost identical: after art’s self-sublation, its principal goal has supposedly been social engagement. Yet despite the internalization of the avant-garde’s socially oriented legacy, the true episteme and achievement of art since the 1960s has been conceptual surplus rather than social involvement. The negative antisocial character and vicious genealogy inherent to art since early modernist practices fostered various manipulations of this conceptual surplus, which eventually turned into the surplus value—the “metaphysical index”—of art’s economics, as Diedrich Diederichsen puts it. Regardless of whether this surplus is a cognitive gimmick, symbolic capital , or a financialized abstraction simply increasing the cost of art, it has functioned as a hidden power of contemporary art, and has been effectively disguised by art’s emancipatory intentions. But what happens to art as an institution of contemporaneity if its codex of self-sublation and the logic of conceptual surplus are demolished by post-secular, post-conceptual cyber-fantasies?
In the paper the post-dramatic practices of theater are juxtaposed to the "theatre of theatre", in which, - paradoxic as it might seem, - conceptualization and self-reflection intensify the dramatic merits.
By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.
Пытаясь заимствовать практики contemporary art, cовременный театр, быть может, идет по ложному пути. В тексте пост-драматическим практикам противопоставляется "театр театра", в котором парадоксальным образом концептуализация и саморефлексия ведут к усилению драматизации.
Кризис мимезиса совпал со многими видами кризиса - кризисом наук о духе, отказом от образа в искусстве, от драматизации и катарсиса в театре, от мелодии и лада в музыке. Практики подобия были отвергнуты как эстетически устаревшие. Сегодня понятие художественного образа звучит как анахронизм. Однако, художественный образ это не оптическая категория. Образ - топология события, которая артикулируется через чувственное, нетеоретическое (миметическое) подключение к миру в Произведении. В конце текста дан комментарий на него самого Валерия Александровича Подороги
VALIE EXPORT incorporated in her studies radical actionism, investigations of femininity, new media , photo experiments, film. EXPORT's radical experiments can be described as the practice of expanding boundaries, rather than the transgressive overcoming of them. While many performances of the 1960s and 70s had a declarative character, marking the expressionistic and transgressive investigations of feminism and sexuality, VALIE EXPORT's explorations of sexuality could not be reduced to the feminist appeal to discover the true feminine sovereignty and pleasure. Nor do we find here the call for a matriarchal pro-tomythology - a pre-Platonic cave not yet inhabited by a philosopher. Investigating the empirical data available for her body, VALIE EXPORT relies on transcendental categories. In other words, her female body and its signifiers become the tool for resolving complex theoretical , political and aesthetic tasks.
In avant-garde rhetoric, as appropriated by contemporary art, the ideas of social engagement and artistic achievement have been almost identical: after art’s self-sublation, its principal goal has supposedly been social engagement. Yet despite the internalization of the avant-garde’s socially oriented legacy, the true episteme and achievement of art since the 1960s has been conceptual surplus rather than social involvement. The negative antisocial character and vicious genealogy inherent to art since early modernist practices fostered various manipulations of this conceptual surplus, which eventually turned into the surplus value—the “metaphysical index”—of art’s economics, as Diedrich Diederichsen puts it. Regardless of whether this surplus is a cognitive gimmick, symbolic capital , or a financialized abstraction simply increasing the cost of art, it has functioned as a hidden power of contemporary art, and has been effectively disguised by art’s emancipatory intentions. But what happens to art as an institution of contemporaneity if its codex of self-sublation and the logic of conceptual surplus are demolished by post-secular, post-conceptual cyber-fantasies?
единственного) тома книги Пьера Булеза «Ориентиры. Воображать». Выбор статей ориентирован на представление связи
между композиторскими техниками XX века, критикой нововенской школы (додекафонии) и поэтикой сериализма. Переведенные работы
демонстрируют приоритеты Булеза по отношению к музыке и
искусству в целом. Книга рассчитана на широкий круг читателей,
интересующихся проблемами современной музыки и предварена предисловием составителя К. Чухров "От серии к расширяющейся вселенной".