Mediakcije Collection, book no. 17
Original title: Interpassivitat: die Freuden des delegierten
Translation: Alfred Leskovec
Preface: Tadej Troha
Collection editor: Gregor Moder
12 × 19cm
© Maska, Ljubljana, 2019
ISBN 978-961-6572-53-8
This book was published in Slovenian.
Robert Pfaller: Interpasivnost. Radosti delegiranega uživanja
Are there people who don’t try to run away from work but, surprisingly, from enjoyment? And do so by delegating it to other people, animals, or machines? Do they use recording devices to not watch television series? Do they print out texts or save them to their hard drives to not read them? Do they wear sport shoes to not do sports? Do they have all-terrain vehicles only to not drive on rugged terrain? And do they prefer other people to laugh, cry, or believe into something instead of them; or, also, that other people are drunk as Dionysius, as debauched as Messalina, as superfluous as Oblomov, or as vulgar as the American president instead of them? Why don’t they want to have their pleasures for themselves? And why do they find it so important that somebody else enjoys them for them?
“New concepts are rare in social thinking, and interpassivity is arguably the only true concept
that emerged in the last two decades. The idea that others can not only act for us but that they
can also be passive for us, that we can enjoy, believe, laugh and cry through others, provides
the key to understand the paradoxes of our cynical-hedonist era. So let’s not beat around the
bush: Interpassivity is simply one of the great founding texts of social thought, on a par with
works of classics like Max Weber.” Slavoj Žižek
Mediakcije Collection, book no. 17
Original title: Interpassivitat: die Freuden des delegierten
Translation: Alfred Leskovec
Preface: Tadej Troha
Collection editor: Gregor Moder
12 × 19cm
© Maska, Ljubljana, 2019
ISBN 978-961-6572-53-8
This book was published in Slovenian.
Excerpt
“Za bibliomanovo knjižnico se lahko ob površnem pogledu zdi, da gre tu v veliki meri za
podpiranje branja, medtem ko v resnici vsaka knjiga v njej po možnosti predstavlja delček
lastnikove izvzetosti. Zatorej bi lahko za mnoge zasebne knjižne zbirke rekli, da je zanje
značilno to, kar je povsem razločno razkril nedavno izvedeni umetniški projekt Juliusa
Deutschbauerja v dunajski sejemski dvorani Messepalast z naslovom »Knjižnica neprebranih
knjig«: nabavljanje knjig, ki naj bi služilo bralnemu užitku in se nemara uporablja že kot
obrambni ukrep proti naraščajočemu neugodju ob branju, tako v nasprotju s svojim videzom
ravno temu neugodju pogosto pomaga do njegove realizacije. Manifestno za kulturo in njeno
uživanje, latentno pa proti temu – to je torej struktura interpasivnih ukrepov. Negativni odnos
do užitka in kulture, ki predstavlja latentni del, je torej prva in močnejša sila, medtem ko se
ugodje, nasprotno, izkaže za šibkejšo in stvari, ki je ne more več preprečiti, daje le še sprejemljivejšo obliko. Ravno ugodje, ki ga mnogi filozofi in ideologi koncipirajo kot nekaj
prvotnega in izvornega, kot nekaj, kar je kultura le za silo preoblikovala, se torej tu kaže kot
nekaj drugotnega in izvedenega, kot element, ki se (skupaj s kulturo) zgolj preoblikuje.
Ugodje se kaže kot tako rekoč »reakcijska tvorba«, če naj uporabimo ta Freudov izraz.”
Robert Pfaller, Interpassivity
About the Author
Robert Pfaller is an Austrian philosopher and one of the most notable theoreticians in the German-language space. He lectures at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz and is a founding member of the Viennese psychoanalytic research group “stuzzicadenti”. He is the author of numerous influential and well-read books on the philosophy of culture and everyday life. In Slovenian language, he published several articles and Umazano sveto in čisti
um (Das schmutzige Heilige und die reine Vernunft, Frankfurt, Fischer, 2008. Slovenian translation: Ljubljana: Analecta, 2009), in which he focuses mostly on the phenomenon of illusions or ideas that we do not recognize as our own but scribe them to some unnamed others. Published in English in a slightly different form in 2014 (Verso), the work was awarded the “Best book published in 2018” award of the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis (ABAPsa). His other works include Wofür es sich zu leben lohnt: Elemente
materialistischer Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011) and the
recent Erwachsenensprache: Über ihr Verschwinden aus Politik und Kultur, (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2017). In Slovenia, Pfaller’s work is well-known as he often lectures on festivals, conferences, and other events, while working closely with the Lacan circle and the representatives of artistic practices. On a global level, he is most famous for his concept of interpassivity.
Table of Contents
Predgovor k slovenski izdaji
Lepo, če so drugi sokrivi za interpasivnost!
Zakaj se stvari smejijo namesto nas.
Paradoks interpasivnosti
Umetniško delo, ki gleda samo sebe, užitek in odsotnost. Elementi estetike interpasivnosti
Interpasivnost ali zakaj marsikateri ljudje nočejo imeti agency
Filozofija in spontana filozofija umetnosti
O nedobrem v užitku. Zakaj sami nočemo umeti užitka, a se mu vendarle ne moremo povsem odreči
Ne pustie se zavesti! O paternalistični politiki in ritualih prekinjanja
Laž, resnica, umetnost
ARI in jaz. Avtobiografski diskurz o branju in dobsednosti
Bibliografija
Robert Pfaller, objektivni lacanovec
Imensko in stvarno kazalo
Robert Pfaller & Gregor Moder on Interpassivity
Reception in public
Jedrt Jež Furlan: Ležernost ne, interpasivnost na polno
Dnevnki / Objektiv / Naježeno in jedrnato / 4. 5. 2019
Pfaller writes that today, people are not running away from work but from enjoyment. This
means – in my own interpretation and slight abuse – they are full of oxymorons. For example:
people who are always dressed in sporty clothes but do no sport. Just so that they don’t have
to. Or those who drive those few kilometres from home to work in all-terrain vehicles. In a way, they fascinate me. Every day, that same way to that same job, from–to, instead of taking
their vehicle to its terrain. Perhaps because their autopilot has them trapped in a routine, they
never break from their chain – that’s why they offer themselves at least a good car. Leasing,
or credit.
Zdenko Vrdlovec: Umetnost? Raje ne bi
Dnevnik / 16. 5. 2019
Recording films or TV shows rather than watching them, photocopying books rather that
reading them, sending other people to cafés, theatres, and concerts instead of us, even praying
through an intermediary. With interpassivity, Pfaller denotes behaviour shown in delegating
pleasure to another person or machine; he calls interpassive the people who tend to perform
such behaviour; and introduces the term interpassive media for the surrogate people or
machines that take the observer or reader away the activities of watching or reading or liberate
them from the obligation of receptively having or enjoying in an artistic or cultural asset.
Ko izgubimo socialno obvezo, izgubimo tudi zmožnost uživati v užitku
Delo / Sobotna priloga / Robert Pfaller v intervjuju z Janezom Markešem / 18. 5. 2019
Religious fanatism is the one destroying the magic of social life. We can see this in the post-
modern time. We are witnesses to an epochal turn as the enjoyments we liked became more or less suspicious: to drive cars, wear high heels, make jokes, give compliments, smoke, have sex, eat meat … Due to political or ethical reasons, much of what we praised an enjoyed became suspicious.
Robert Pfaller o interpasivnosti, radosti delegiranega uživanja
MMC RTV SLO / 9. 5. 2019
Filozof Slavoj Žižek opisuje pojem interpasivnosti kot nemara edini res novi pojem, ki je vzniknil v zadnjih dveh desetletjih. Postavlja ga na enako raven kot dela klasikov, kakršen je Max Weber.
Robert Pfaller
TV Slovenija / Profil / 13. 1. 2018
Eva Kučera Šman: Premeščaje užitka zaradi uživanja
Amfiteater 7.2 / 5. 2. 2020
From psychoanalysis and Freud onwards, enjoyment always hides something unclean, not
good, even indecent. Because of morality, a person therefore sooner renounces it by delegating enjoyment to somebody else: people suddenly prefer being good to being happy; and they prefer being better that other people to having a good time (with them). By the way, Pfaller also analyses the question of moral in the chapter “Ne pustite se zavesti!”.
Andrej Adam: Interpasivnost?
Dilaogi 5–6 / 2019