Transformance Art in Pyrotheology - Breaking the Cycle of Repression through Dialectics

Continual Subversion:
Pyrotheology, Dialectics, and the Art of Disruption

http://peterrollins.net/2014/04/continual-subversion-pyrotheology-dialectics-and-the-art-of-disruption/

by Peter Rollins

April 25, 2014

The term “Transformance Art” was coined a number of years ago to describe the praxis of Pyrotheology. Transformance Art is basically a practice that employs various art forms in an attempt to disrupt, disturb, surprise and confront a given individual/community with themselves. This disruption involves bringing to light the things that the individual/community have repressed, things that are likely causing suffering and/or violence. This is why terms like “doubt,” “brokenness,” “lack,” and “self-examination,” are so central to the lexicon of Pyrotheology.

However, when teaching on the subject, I’m often asked what would happen should this transgressive discourse ever achieve popularity. Basically the question is, “if Pyrotheology were to become a new orthodoxy, would that not undermine it’s own ability to unnerve and subvert us”?

This question revolves around the insight that any system of belief can become a type of enclosure to prevent us from being shocked by our own being and disturbed by our own acts. Indeed, as New Atheism makes clear, even a discourse that champions certain forms of non-belief can fall into this trap.

What is missed here is the way that Transformance Art is not designed to preach some system of belief (or non-belief), but rather to encourage a form of dialectic movement in the lives of those who participate (*development through a back-and-forth movement between opposing propositions).

Take the true example of a young man in analysis who described his attachment to a particular woman in terms of a drug addiction. During a session he spoke of how he sought the high of the connection with her even though these were inevitably followed by long, dark lows. As the session came to an end the therapist simply asked if the young man was in fact an addict who was seeking after the lows rather than the highs.

This rhetorical question had the effect of opening up a new line of thought in the analysand (sic, a person undergoing analysis), one that enabled him to explore the idea that he might get something out of his depression, and might even be seeking it out in some unconscious way.

The question asked by the analyst in this session is an example of how a type of dialectic movement might be encouraged, one that can effectively shake an individual out of a certain groove of thought. In a subtle way the analyst was able to present an opposite idea that seemed to uncover a more complex relation to pleasure and pain in the analysand, one that he was previously unaware of. In this brief moment the analysand was surprised by himself and disturbed in a fruitful way.

This is a dialectic move precisely because the negation is already a negation of negation. For when the question, “Are you actually seeking the low” is posed, there is an implication that the individual might be seeking the low because that is where the real high is. In dialectic terms it works like this,

Affirmation – I’m seeking the high

Negation – I’m seeking the low

Negation of negation – I’m seeking the low because I get some kind of high from it

From this insight the analysand might be more able to self-interrogate why he holds onto painful situations.

This example can help us understand one of the fundamental opening moves of Transformance Art. For those who put these events on are committed to a type of dialectic dynamic which attempts to uncover the hidden shadows of the conscious affirmations in a given group. All of which is in the service of surprising the community with its own repressed content (with the hope that this disruption leads to a more healthy, active and joyful community).

This means that Transformance Art aims to be an inherently subversive discourse, one that continually attempts to negate the affirmation of a particular group, regardless of what that affirmation is.