Žižek @ Nuit Blanche
Sep. 30th, 2012 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyThere is not a lot that could get me out to Nuit Blanche (which combines huge drunken crowds, exhaustion, cold, and corporate sponsorship of the arts) but I have very few celebrity crushes, and one of them was speaking at it. Accordingly, I ventured out to Symposium: Until the End of the World to see Slavoj Žižek talk about the apocalypse at Toronto City Hall.
Going in, there was a video installation that didn't completely suck: Civilization (Megaplex) by Marco Brambilla. It was deliciously apocalyptic and spooky.
The first speaker was Arthur Kroker, who spoke about technology and drone warfare with all the subtlety of a philosophy undergrad who also happens to be incredibly high. As someone across the room texted, it was a vision of the future straight out of the 1970s. I have to say, though, the architecture of Council Chambers lends itself well to that sort of thing:
The second speaker was Brenda Longfellow, who took great pains to point out that she is a filmmaker, not a philosopher. She didn't have anything that exciting to say beyond a contemporary update to peak oil theory, but her latest project, Offshore, looks rather intriguing.
Then it was time for Žižek. If you've seen his movies or the various talks posted to YouTube, you'd know what to expect. He was animated*, cynical, and completely hilarious, segueing from Hollywood to Brecht to Laçan to horror stories from Indonesia and China to why Syriza needs to consider creating a secret police force to the role of perversion in reinforcing dominant ideology, delighting in making his audience squirm, and of course, offering his take on the end of the world and our current moment of ecological and economic crisis.
I also usually don't stick around for Q&As, but it was fun watching him not-answer a series of overly earnest questions from the audience. The highlight was the last question, from a hippie who hit the white-girl-Buddhism/permaculture/Gandhi trifecta and apparently didn't know who she was talking to. I felt a bit cruel delighting in the resulting embarrassment squick (except I'm not sure that she was self-aware enough to be embarrassed) and Žižek's surprisingly polite—at first, and then he got scathing—take-down of naïve Orientalism.
Basically amazing. I am tempted to go hear him speak again tomorrow, but it's probably the same talk and also involves trekking all the way up to York on a school night.
* Possibly a euphemism for coked to the gills.
Going in, there was a video installation that didn't completely suck: Civilization (Megaplex) by Marco Brambilla. It was deliciously apocalyptic and spooky.
The first speaker was Arthur Kroker, who spoke about technology and drone warfare with all the subtlety of a philosophy undergrad who also happens to be incredibly high. As someone across the room texted, it was a vision of the future straight out of the 1970s. I have to say, though, the architecture of Council Chambers lends itself well to that sort of thing:
The second speaker was Brenda Longfellow, who took great pains to point out that she is a filmmaker, not a philosopher. She didn't have anything that exciting to say beyond a contemporary update to peak oil theory, but her latest project, Offshore, looks rather intriguing.
Then it was time for Žižek. If you've seen his movies or the various talks posted to YouTube, you'd know what to expect. He was animated*, cynical, and completely hilarious, segueing from Hollywood to Brecht to Laçan to horror stories from Indonesia and China to why Syriza needs to consider creating a secret police force to the role of perversion in reinforcing dominant ideology, delighting in making his audience squirm, and of course, offering his take on the end of the world and our current moment of ecological and economic crisis.
I also usually don't stick around for Q&As, but it was fun watching him not-answer a series of overly earnest questions from the audience. The highlight was the last question, from a hippie who hit the white-girl-Buddhism/permaculture/Gandhi trifecta and apparently didn't know who she was talking to. I felt a bit cruel delighting in the resulting embarrassment squick (except I'm not sure that she was self-aware enough to be embarrassed) and Žižek's surprisingly polite—at first, and then he got scathing—take-down of naïve Orientalism.
Basically amazing. I am tempted to go hear him speak again tomorrow, but it's probably the same talk and also involves trekking all the way up to York on a school night.
* Possibly a euphemism for coked to the gills.
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Date: 2012-09-30 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 04:20 pm (UTC)You should watch him as well as reading him! His writing is funny, but his lectures are inspired.
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Date: 2012-09-30 04:32 pm (UTC)i PA'd on a Longfellow movie right out of school - "Gerda" - and also was an extra in it. Curious about her new stuff.
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Date: 2012-09-30 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-09-30 07:39 pm (UTC)Bosch + Winston Smith + Metropolis + Koyaanisqatsi all in one!
When I saw the * I was like "high on coke" and scroll down and sure as shit... though you certainly had said it more eloquently.
LOLHippiegirls.
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Date: 2012-09-30 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 08:24 pm (UTC)I had read this as "involves trekkies all the way up at York on a school night" and got really excited about the idea of something Star Trek-related happening at my school.
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Date: 2012-09-30 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-30 11:07 pm (UTC)I am still not getting into Zizek though I tried. My brain is too busy being stressed, and I feel it is the sort of thing where you have to have read what comes before in order to catch up to the right point in the dialogic whatsit. Like when I tried to read Bakhtin or Kristeva and they were writing in response to lots of other writings which you had to read first and it could regress forever and kill you.
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Date: 2012-09-30 11:11 pm (UTC)Anyway, he does not believe that there will be an apocalypse. The other two speakers seemed to be quite convinced, though.
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Date: 2012-09-30 11:23 pm (UTC)I just found an intro to Adorno on my new bookshelves, though. I remember that being completely incomprehensible. What I started to read by Zizek was nice and straightforward in comparison.
Pop culture things I might find even more incomprehensible, to be honest!
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Date: 2012-10-01 01:07 am (UTC)now i am wishing i could teleport my giggle pee onto Rob Ford
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Date: 2012-10-01 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-10-01 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 09:29 pm (UTC)Heh.
Yeah, he was slightly more coherent during the Q&A, but only slightly. I felt that what he really wanted to do was perform in a poetry slam.
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Date: 2012-10-01 09:53 pm (UTC)I first saw his books and writings back in the late 80s, e.g. the Panic Encyclopedia.
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Date: 2012-10-03 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 10:34 am (UTC)Though I'd highly suggest watching his lectures (there are a ton of them on YouTube) or his movies (Žižek! and A Pervert's Guide to Cinema) before reading anything if you want to get a sense of why I <3 him so.