Universidade Lusófona do Porto
About The Aesthetics of Accident
Do Acontecimento
Manuel Bogalheiro
December
2021
Tue
21
Sinopse
The Aesthetics of Accident
On the reverse side of the desire to overcome each technical solution, there seems to be an obsessive fascination with failure and accident, as if among the traumatic effects of a misfortune or the material wreckage of a catastrophe, a scenario of revelation and truth could be recognized, exposing the which was always latent, which had not been contemplated by the plan or the excess of the world which, like the sublime, dazzles because, precisely, it terrifies. Paul Virilio, who planned a vast visual archive of the catastrophe which he named the Museum of Accidents, projected the culminating moment of this historical trend in Modernity: “The invention of 'substance' is also the invention of 'accident'. The wreck is, therefore, the invention of the ship's power, and the air accident the invention of the plane, just as the melting of Chernobyl is the invention of nuclear energy.” Confirming or questioning this determinism, figuring variations of an original—or, conversely, eschatological—accident around which History is structured, countless images, from mythology to cinema, were sedimenting an aestheticizing imaginary of the accident that, on the one hand, it seeks shock and bewilderment, on the other hand, and perhaps more decisively, it seeks the installation of a security perimeter. Like the spectator of shipwrecks who, from Lucretius to Hans Blumenberg, has been metaphorized as the one who, spectacularizing or fictionalizing, remains at a distance from the contingent wave that erupts and takes everything away, being able to contemplate it, without, however, not being able to to position themselves as someone who also, in part, constitutes this same vacancy.
Do Acontecimento [Of the Event]
At a time of calculation, rules and prevention all of a sudden emerges the unexpected, something that disrupts the course of events and threatens the flow of life. In a sort of paradox, the more one anticipates the accident, the more catastrophic and unmanageable it is when it occurs. It is understandable that in this respect the notion of Event, contingent and unpredictable, has been gaining ground to account for forces that exceed historical forms, either coming from Nature, like a catastrophe, or from within the history we make, widespread as a fire or an epidemic. There’s a certain amount of panic in the face of excessive force and the weakness of forms, even if a considerable part of human culture has been based on the wait for a decisive event, a revolution, through which peace or justice may triumph once and for all. Some bare witness to it, others announce it, and others lose all hope tired of waiting. Only art, thought and technique are able to respond to the Event and create the labyrinth where—much like the ancient Minotaur—we can be close to it and its power without the illusion of cancelling or controlling it.
Manuel Bogalheiro teaches at the School of Communication, Arts, Architecture and Information Technologies of the Porto Lusófona University and auxiliar assistant professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He has a PhD in Communication Sciences, specialising in Contemporary Culture and New Technologies, from the FCSH-UNL with a thesis titled “Materiality and Technicity: On the Technical Objectuality” and a scholarship from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). He is a researcher at the Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (CICANT) and a member of the scientific committee of the European-funded project CA2RE+ Collective Evaluation of Design Driven Doctoral Training. He also represents the young researchers at the Philosophy of Communication Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). He is the director of the Master's Degree in Communication, Networks and Technologies at the ULP and, between 2017 and 2021, was part of the direction of the PhD in Media Art (ULP/ULHT). He works and publishes within the fields of philosophy of technique, media theory and culture. He recently edited and coordinated Crítica das Mediações Totais – Perspectivas Expandidas dos Media (Documenta, 2021) and, together with Isabel Babo and João Sousa Cardoso, Expressões Visuais Disruptivas no Espaço Público (Edições Lusófonas/CICANT, 2021).
On the reverse side of the desire to overcome each technical solution, there seems to be an obsessive fascination with failure and accident, as if among the traumatic effects of a misfortune or the material wreckage of a catastrophe, a scenario of revelation and truth could be recognized, exposing the which was always latent, which had not been contemplated by the plan or the excess of the world which, like the sublime, dazzles because, precisely, it terrifies. Paul Virilio, who planned a vast visual archive of the catastrophe which he named the Museum of Accidents, projected the culminating moment of this historical trend in Modernity: “The invention of 'substance' is also the invention of 'accident'. The wreck is, therefore, the invention of the ship's power, and the air accident the invention of the plane, just as the melting of Chernobyl is the invention of nuclear energy.” Confirming or questioning this determinism, figuring variations of an original—or, conversely, eschatological—accident around which History is structured, countless images, from mythology to cinema, were sedimenting an aestheticizing imaginary of the accident that, on the one hand, it seeks shock and bewilderment, on the other hand, and perhaps more decisively, it seeks the installation of a security perimeter. Like the spectator of shipwrecks who, from Lucretius to Hans Blumenberg, has been metaphorized as the one who, spectacularizing or fictionalizing, remains at a distance from the contingent wave that erupts and takes everything away, being able to contemplate it, without, however, not being able to to position themselves as someone who also, in part, constitutes this same vacancy.
Do Acontecimento [Of the Event]
At a time of calculation, rules and prevention all of a sudden emerges the unexpected, something that disrupts the course of events and threatens the flow of life. In a sort of paradox, the more one anticipates the accident, the more catastrophic and unmanageable it is when it occurs. It is understandable that in this respect the notion of Event, contingent and unpredictable, has been gaining ground to account for forces that exceed historical forms, either coming from Nature, like a catastrophe, or from within the history we make, widespread as a fire or an epidemic. There’s a certain amount of panic in the face of excessive force and the weakness of forms, even if a considerable part of human culture has been based on the wait for a decisive event, a revolution, through which peace or justice may triumph once and for all. Some bare witness to it, others announce it, and others lose all hope tired of waiting. Only art, thought and technique are able to respond to the Event and create the labyrinth where—much like the ancient Minotaur—we can be close to it and its power without the illusion of cancelling or controlling it.
Manuel Bogalheiro teaches at the School of Communication, Arts, Architecture and Information Technologies of the Porto Lusófona University and auxiliar assistant professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He has a PhD in Communication Sciences, specialising in Contemporary Culture and New Technologies, from the FCSH-UNL with a thesis titled “Materiality and Technicity: On the Technical Objectuality” and a scholarship from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). He is a researcher at the Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (CICANT) and a member of the scientific committee of the European-funded project CA2RE+ Collective Evaluation of Design Driven Doctoral Training. He also represents the young researchers at the Philosophy of Communication Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). He is the director of the Master's Degree in Communication, Networks and Technologies at the ULP and, between 2017 and 2021, was part of the direction of the PhD in Media Art (ULP/ULHT). He works and publishes within the fields of philosophy of technique, media theory and culture. He recently edited and coordinated Crítica das Mediações Totais – Perspectivas Expandidas dos Media (Documenta, 2021) and, together with Isabel Babo and João Sousa Cardoso, Expressões Visuais Disruptivas no Espaço Público (Edições Lusófonas/CICANT, 2021).
© Carlos Lança
Info sobre horário e bilhetes
Tue
21.12
18:30
RivoliSmall Auditorium
Aditional info
- Price Free entrance
Age recommendation 6+
