Symbolic Misery, Volume 2 The Catastrophe of the Sensible

In this important new book, leading cultural theorist and philosopher Bernard Stiegler re-examines the relationship between politics and art in the contemporary world. Our hyper-industrial epoch represents what Stiegler terms a ?katastroph of the sensible?. This katastroph is not an apocalypse or the end of everything, but the denouement of a drama; it is the final act in the process of psychic and collective individuation known as the ?West?.

Hyper-industrialization has brought about the loss of symbolic participation and the destruction of primordial narcissism, the very condition for individuation. It is in this context that artists have a unique role to play. When not subsumed in the capitalist economy, they are able to resist its synchronizing tendency, offering the possibility of reimagining the contemporary model of aesthetic participation.

This highly original work - the second in Stiegler?s Symbolic Misery series - will be of particular interest to students in philosophy, media and cultural studies, contemporary art and sociology, and will consolidate Stiegler?s reputation as one of the most original cultural theorists of our time.

Call to Adventure

Notice to the Reader

Prologue with Chorus

Sensibility’s Machinic Turn and Music’s Privilege

I Sensing through Participation

Or the Art of Acting Out

II Setting Out

From Warhol and Beuys

III Us All

Individuation as Trans-formation and Trans-formation as Social Sculpture

IV Freud’s Repression

Where the Living Seize the Dead and Vice Versa

V The Disjunctive Conjunction

Mais où est donc Ornicar?