[-empyre-] Ranciere: The Political Is Rare, so Is Queer? And Is Relationality Rare? More to follow ...

[Robert Summers]

I hope you do not mind a brief rehearsal and then a series of questions ...

I have been writing on the work, which includes the life, and which I
call the "art-life," the "aesthetics of existence," of Vaginal Davis
(http://www.vaginaldavis.com), and I argue -- which has been argued
before (and possibly much better) -- that aesthetics is tied to ethics
and politics: they are thoroughly intertwined.  I argue that an
aesthetics of existence is to be enacted on a daily basis, not just on
rare occasion.  I then go on to articulate Ranciere's notion of the
political -- in which he argues that politics is rare (in his text
_Disagreement_), and I then argue that queer is rare, but this seems a
contradiction: queer aesthetics of existence is to be enacted daily,
but queer is rare!?!  So, perhaps, it is "queer politics" that is
rare, but then what is "queer politics" -- IS IT NOT "SIMPLY" QUEER?
What constitutes the politics of queer?  Is queer always political --
I would think, and I do think that queer theory is political?
Now, to a visual example, Christina (McPhee)'s video "Tesserae Hot
Pink Cali (2009) ( http://vimeo.com/5303813), this is a queer
visuality that is also political, so a queer politics (of aesthetics)
(?).  Here is another visual example, it is Vaginal Davis enacting
"Chicken Man" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEdaUvW81Zw), and I
would argue this is deeply political (the politics of parody, of
exasperating racial identity and racism, and in a queer way.
So, again, is queer rare, as Ranciere says of the political?  Or is it
not?  or both?  Or is queer politics rare?
Also is relationality political?  Am I making queer, aesthetics,
politics, and relationality over-determined?  Perhaps my terms are
clumsy?  not thought out?

Thanks for your time,
Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
Lecturer
Art History and Visual Culture
Otis College of Art and Design
e: rsummers at otis.edu
w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome