The Performer as Philosopher and Diplomat of Dissensus: Thinking and Drinking Tea with Benjamin Verdonck in Bara/ke (2000)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21476/PP.2015.1113Abstract
Ecology and activism is a burning issue in theatre and performance studies. However, following the French philosopher Bruno Latour, a radically new encounter with ecology is needed today, if eco-activism still wants to have a future. It seems that, in order to survive, eco-activism and eco-art have to move beyond their narrow and limited anthropocentric perspective. In this paradigm shift, the performer as philosopher – in the sense of a diplomat of dissensus – might play an important role. The Flemish artist and performer Benjamin Verdonck picks up this role of a performer as philosopher. In his artistic tree houses, Verdonck invites passers-by for coffee or tea and gently raises ecological issues. He performs protest as what I call “a diplomat of dissensus”, combining Latour’s writings on contemporary ecology and the function of the diplomat therein, and Jacques Rancière’s writings on dissensus and art in public space. Ecology, for its part, moves into the direction of what Félix Guattari in The Three Ecologies refers to as “the ethico-aesthetic aegis of an ecosophy” (Guattari 2000, 41), a contraction of ecology and philosophy that connects the environmental with a reflection on the psychic production of subjectivity and social relations.
References
Amory, Dita. 2007. “The Barbizon School: French Painters of Nature.” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, March. Accessed 28 May 2013. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bfpn/hd_bfpn.htm.
Arnold, Ron. 1997. Ecoterror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature. Bellevue WA: Free Enterprise Press.
Arons, Wendy. 2007. “Review of Nature Performed: Environment, Culture and Performance, ed. Bronislaw Szerszynski, Wallace Heim and Claire Waterton, and Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts, eds. Gabriella Giannachi and Nigel Stewart.” Theatre Journal 59 (4): 687-689. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/tj.2008.0038.
Bennett, Jane. 2009. Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Durham NC: Duke University Press.
Čičigoj, Katja. 2013 “Up to Nature: the Continuation of Ego-Ecology?” Maska 153-154: 38-45.
Foreman, David. 1991. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Crown Publications.
Frances Lee, Martha. 1995. Earth First! Environmental Apocalypse. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Fraser, Genevieve Thomson. Preface. “Giants in the Wilderness: A One-Act Play Forestry Chautauqua.” The Drama Circle. Art for Life, 9 July 2008. Accessed 6 August 2012. http://thedramacircle.blogspot.be/p/ecotheater-giants-in-wilderness-by.html.
Gay, Kathlyn. 2012. American Dissidents: An Encyclopedia of Activists, Subversives, and Prisoners of Conscience. Volume 1. Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO.
Guattari, Félix. 2000. The Three Ecologies. Translated by Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton. London: Athlone.
Kelleher, Joe. 2013. “You Promised Me Ten Thousand people.” Maska 153/154: 24-29.
Keller, David R., and Frank B. Golley. 2000. “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Ecology: From Science to Synthesis, edited by David R. Keller and Frank B. Golley, 1-19. Athens GA: University of Georgia Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2004. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
Manes, Christopher. 1990. Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization. Boston: Little, Brown.
Massumi, Brian and Erin Manning. 2009. “History Through the Middle. Between Macro and Mesopolitics. An Interview with Isabelle Stengers.” Inflections 3. Accessed 8 August 2013. http://www.senselab.ca/inflexions/volume_3/node_i3/stengers_en_inflexions_vol03.html.
Morton, Timothy. 2007. Ecology Without Nature. Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. 2010. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Mukherjee, Roopali and Sarah Banet-Weiser. 2012. Commodity Activism. Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times. New York: New York University Press.
Phelan, Peggy and Una Chaudhuri. 2013. “Performance in an Expanded Temporal Field.” Paper presented at Now Then. Performance and Temporality, Performance Studies International conference 19, Stanford University, June 26-30.
Protopapa, Efrosini. 2013. “Diplomatic Bodies. Redirecting, Sidetracking, Deflecting, Bypassing.” Paper presented at the Choreography & Corporeality Working Group of the FIRT/IFTR World Congress, Re-Routing Performance, Barcelona, July 22-26.
Rancière, Jacques. 2009. The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso.
Rancière, Jacques. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2011. Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Translated by Russell Goulbourne. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scarce, Rik. 2006. Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement. Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press.
Shackelford, George T.M. and Fronia E. Wissman. 2002. Impressions of Light: The French Landscape from Corot to Monet. Boston: MFA Publications.
Stalpaert, Christel and Karolien Byttebier. 2014. “Art and Ecology. Scenes from a Tumultuous Affair.” In The Ethics of Art. Ecological Turns in the Performing Arts, edited by Guy Cools and Pascal Gielen, 59-87. Amsterdam: Valiz.
Thoreau, Henry David. 1995. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Mineola NY: Dover Publications.
Van Dyke, Fred. 2008. Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications. London: Springer.
Verdonck, Benjamin. 2008. Werk/Some Work. Ghent: MER. Paper Kunsthalle/Campo.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Christel Stalpaert

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, provided it is for non-commercial uses; and that lets others excerpt, translate, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).