Art in Service of Anti-anthropy: The Work of Yazan Halwani
Filip Ryba
f.ryba@doctoral.uj.edu.plJagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1624-7257
Abstract
This article attempts a critical reflection on anthropy and anti-anthropy–philosophical categories proposed by Bernard Stiegler. This reflection is set in the context of a critique of capitalism and its alliance with neoliberalism. The author analyses said categories by referring to the work of one of the best-known Lebanese artists of the younger generation, Yazan Halwani. His selected works are discussed in a performative perspective, as examples of technologies that foster anti-anthropy. The author analyses Stiegler’s categories in the Lebanese context to show contemporary Lebanon as a prime example of a state operating in accordance with business ontology–the ontological project identified by Mark Fisher with regard to capitalist realism. In all examples of his work, Halwani emphasizes the theme of forced migration understood as practices that generates chaos and further anthropy. The author of the article argues that the anti-anthropic dimension of the Lebanese artist’s work consists in using the issue of migration to reflect on the possibilities of conceiving new worlds and communities that would effectively resist anthropy.
Supporting Agencies
Keywords:
anthropy, capitalist realism, entropy, Entropocene, Lebanese art, Yazan HalwaniReferences
Arystoteles. Metafizyka. Tłumaczenie: Kazimierz Leśniak. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1983.
Google Scholar
Fisher, Mark. Realizm kapitalistyczny: Czy nie ma alternatywy?. Tłumaczenie Andrzej Karalus. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Książka i Prasa, 2020.
Google Scholar
Halwani, Yazan. Hotel Beirut or Mundane Entropy. Beirut: Agial Art Gallery, 2021. http://www.salehbarakatgallery.com/Content/uploads/Exhibition/2632_yh_c.pdf.
Google Scholar
Heller, Michał, i Tadeusz Pabjan. Elementy filozofii przyrody. Tarnów: Wydawnictwo BIBLOS, 2007.
Google Scholar
Jenkins, Richard. Social Identity. London: Routledge, 2008.
Google Scholar
Krzykawski, Michał. „Wyjść z nędzy entropocenu. Propozycja Interwencji”. Wakat (2020). http://wakat.sdk.pl/wyjsc-nedzy-entropocenu-propozycja-internacji/.
Google Scholar
Majdalani, Charif. Beirut 2020: The Collapse of a Civilization, a Journal. Translated by Ruth Diver. London: Mountain Leopard Press, 2021.
Google Scholar
Springer, Simon. „Jebać neoliberalizm!”. Tłumaczenie Filip Brzeźniak. Praktyka Teoretyczna 29, nr 3 (2019): 136–145. https://doi.org/10.14746/prt.2018.3.7.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/prt.2018.3.7
Google Scholar
Stiegler, Bernard. The Neganthropocene. Edited and translated by Daniel Ross. London: Open Humanities Press, 2018. https://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/the-neganthropocene.
Google Scholar
Stiegler, Bernard. Wstrząsy: Głupota i wiedza w XXI wieku. Tłumaczenie Michał Krzykawski. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2017.
Google Scholar
Szczawińska, Weronika. „Obrazy w akcji: Fotografia, gest, performatywność”. Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej, nr 12 (2015). https://doi.org/10.36854/widok/2015.12.859.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36854/widok/2015.12.859
Google Scholar
Ziadé, Lamia. My Port of Beirut. Translated by Emma Ramadan. London: Pluto Press, 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.2915803
Google Scholar
Authors
Filip Rybaf.ryba@doctoral.uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University in Kraków Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1624-7257
Filip Ryba – researcher and activist, PhD student at the School of Humanities and associate at the Chair of Performatics at the Jagiellonian University. Graduate in cultural studies, Asian studies (specialisation in the Middle East) and the scientific association Collegium Invisibile. In his doctoral project deals with the problem of being-with-crisis in contemporary Beirut and what this being can say about the future in the climate crisis. Associate of of the Researchers on the Border group dealing with the humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border. In his spare time, he writes for the (pop)cultural magazine Popmoderna.
Statistics
Abstract views: 168PDF downloads: 79
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Filip Ryba
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author grants a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Pamiętnik Teatralny should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.
From issue 1/2018 to 3/2022 all articles were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Filip Ryba, Knot/Knot*: From Metaphorization to Matterphorization of Academic Discourses , Pamiętnik Teatralny: Vol. 71 No. 4 (2022): Performativity (with essay cluster curated by Małgorzata Sugiera)
