The Emancipated Spectator ‘have called this talk “The Emancipared Spectaton"* As T understand i, a cle is slays challenge. ses forch che pre supposition thar an expression makes Sense, that there ie link between sepa fate terms, which also means between ‘concepts, problems, and theories that Scem at Rist sight ro bear no direct relation to one another. In a sense, thistle express he perplexity that was mine when Marten Spangberg invited me to deliver what i supposed tobe the “Keynote” eture ofthis academy. He told me he wanted me to introduce this collective reflection ‘on “spectarorship” because he had been impressed by my book The Ignorant Schoolmaster [Le Maitre ignorant (1987)]-Lbegan to wonder ‘what connection there could be berween the cause andthe effect. Tiss ‘anacademy that brings people involved inthe worlds of art, theaer, and performance together to consider the issue of spectatorship today. The Tgviorant Schoolmastr was a meditation on the eccentric theory and the strange destiny of Joseph Jacotot, a French professor who, at the begin- ring ofthe nineteenth century, unsettled the academic world by asserting that an ignorant person could teach another ignorant person what he id not know himself, proclaiming the equality of intelligences, and calling for intellectual emancipation against the received wisdom concerning the instruction ofthe lower classes. His theory sank into oblivion inthe mm ofthe nineteenth century. thought ie nocessary to revive iin the 1980s inorder to stir up the debate about education ands politi stakes. But what use can be made inthe contemporary atti dialogue, of a man “JACQUES RANCIERE whose artistic universe could bee ‘mized by names such as Demosthenes, Racine, and Poussin? ‘On second thought, it occurred to me thatthe very distance, the lack of any ‘obvious relationship between Jacotor’s theory and the issue of spectatorship today might be fortunate, Iecould provide an opportunity to radically distance one’s thoughts from the theoretical and political presupposi tions that sill shore up even in postmodern disguise, mos ofthe discus sion about theater, performance, and spectaorship. 1 gotthe impression that indeed i was posible to make sense of this relationship, on condi ‘ion that we try to piece together the network of presuppositions that put the issue of spectatorship a a strategic intersection inthe discussion ‘ofthe relationship between art and politics and ro sketch out che broader pattern of thinking tha has fora long time framed the political issues, Around theater and spectacle and Luse those terms ina very general, Sense hereto include dance, performance, and all the kinds of spectacle performed by acting bodies infront ofa collective audience). “The numerous debates and polemics that have calle the theater into ‘question throughout our history can be traced back to avery simple ‘contradiction, Let us call tthe paradox ofthe spectator, a paradox tha, ‘may prove more crucial than the wellknown paradox ofthe actor and Which can be summed up in the simplest terms. Theres 0 theater with fut spectators (be it only a single and hidden one, as in Diderot’ fic tional eepresentation of Le Fils naturel [1757). Bu spectatorship isa a EE‘ba thing. Being spectator means looking at a spectacle. And looking is athad thing, for ewo reasons. First, looking is deemed the opposite of knowing, Irmeans standing before an appearance without knowing the conditions which produced that appearance or the reality that lies, ‘behind it. Second, looking is deemed the opposite of acting. He who looks tthe spectacle remains motionless in hs seat, lacking any power ‘ofintervention. Being a spectator means being passive, The spectator is separated from the capacity of knowing just a he is separated from the possibilty of acting. From ths diagnosis itis possible ro draw two opposing conclusions. ‘The ists that theater in general sa bad thing, that itis che stage of il sion and passivity, which must be dismissed in favor of what i forbids: knowledge and action—the action of knowing and the action led by knowledge. This conclusion was drawn long ago by lator The theaters the place where ignorant people are invited to see satfering people. What aes place onthe stage i pathos, the man- itestation of a disease, the disease of desi tnd pain, which is nathing but che self division ofthe subject caused by the lack of knowledge. The “action” of theaters noth- ing bur the transmission of chat disease through another disease, the disease ofthe empirical vision that looks at shadows, “Theater isthe transmission of the ignorance that makes people il through the median of ‘ignorance thats optical illusion, Therefore 2 good community is a community that {doesnt allow the mediation ofthe theater, ‘community whose collective virtues are directly incorporated in the living articudes ofits participants. This seems to be the more logical conclu- son tthe problem. We know, however, that not the conclusion that was most often drawn. The most common con as follows: Theater involves spectatorship, and spectatorshipis a bad thing. Therefore, we needa new theater, a theater without spectator ship. Weneed a theater where the optical elation —implied inthe word, theatron—is subjected to another relation, implied in the word drama Drama means action. The theater isa place where an action is actually performed by living bodies in front of living bodies. The later may have resigned thei power. But this powers resumed in the performance of the former, in the intelligence that builtin the energy that it conveys. “The true sense of the theater must be predicated on that acting power. “Theater has to he brought back to ts rue essence, whic isthe contrary cof what is usually known as theater. What must be pursue isa theater without spectators, theater where spectators will no longer be spect tos, where chey will learn things instead of being captured by images cal form and inst Since the advent of German Romanticism, the concept of the- ater has been associated with the idea of the living community. Theater appeared as a form of the aesthetic constitution of the com- munity: the community as a way of ‘occupying time and space, as a set of living gestures and attitudes, that stands before any kind of polit as a performing body instead of an apparatus of forms and rules. and become active participants in a collective performance instead of being passive viewers. This turn has been understood in wo ways, which are antagonistic in principle, though they have often been mixed in theatrical perfor ‘mance and ints egtimization. On the one hand the spectator mast be released from the passivity ofthe viewer, who is fascinated by the appearance standing font of him and identifies with the characters on the stage. He must be confronted withthe spectacle of something strange, which stands as an enigma and demands that he investigate the reason for its strangeness, He must be presed to abandon the role of passive viewer and take on that ofthe scientist who observes phenom na and secks thei cause. On the other hand the spectator must eschew the role ofthe mere observer who remains still and untouched in front of 8 distant spectacle, He must be torn from his delusive mastery, drawn, ino the magical power of theatrical action, sehere he will exchange the privilege of playing the rational viewer for the experience of possessing theaters true vital energies. ‘Weacknowledge these two paradigmatic atiudes epitomized by Brecht's epic theater land Arcaud's theater of cruelty. On the one hhand the spectator must hecome more dis- tant on the other he must lose any distance. (On the one hand he must change the way he looks for a hetter way of looking, on the ‘other he must abandon the very position of the viewer The projec of reforming the the ater ceaselesly wavered betwoen these 10 poles of distant inquiry and vital embod ‘ment. This means thatthe presuppositions underpinning the search for a new theater are the same as those that underpinned the dismissal of theater. The reformers ofthe theater in fact retained the terms of Plato polemics, rearranging them by borrowing, from Platonism an altemative notion of theater. Plato drew an oppos tion between the poetic and democratic community ofthe theater anda “true” community: a choreographic community in which no one remains motionless spectatog i which everyone moves according toa ‘communitarian shythm determined by mathematical proportion The reformers ofthe theater restaged the Platonic oppsition berween chorea and theater as an opposition between the tue living essence of the theater and the simulacrum of the “spectacle.” The theater then became the place where passive specatorship had to be rurned i contrary—the living ody of community enacingits own principle. In this academy's statement of purpose we read that “theater remains the ‘only pace of direct confrontation ofthe audience with sel a calles: tive” Wecan give that sentence a restrictive meaning that would merely fon; communitycontrast the clletve adience of the theater with the individual vistors to an exhibition or the sheer collection of indvidals watching a movie. But obviously the sentence means much moze. It means that “theater remains the name for an idea ofthe community as living bods. econ: ‘veysan idea ofthe community as selfpresence opposed tothe distance ‘ofthe representation, Since the advent of German Romanticism, the concept of theater has boon associated with the idea of the ving community. Theater appeared asa form of the aesthetic consittion—meaning the sensory consti ‘on—of the community: the community asa way of occupying time and space a8 set of ving gestures and attitdes that stands before any kind ‘of politial form and institution; community asa performing body instead of an apparatus of forms and rules. i this way theater ws ass ciated with the Romantic notion of the aesthetic revolution: the dea ofa revol tion that would change nor only laws and institutions but transform the sensory forms of human experience. The reform ‘oftheater thus meant the restoration of authenticity as an assembly ora ceremony. ‘of the community. Theater i an assembly where the people become aware oftheir situation and discus their own interests, Brecht would say after Piscator. Theater is the ceremony where the communit is given possession ofits own energies, Artaud would state, Itheater is held to be an equivalent ofthe true community, the living body ofthe community opposed to *heillsion of mimesis, comes a8 no sur prise tha the attempt at restoring theater to its erue essence had as its theore hckalrop the evtique ofthe spectacle ‘What s the esence of spectacle in Guy Dehord’s theory? Is externality. The spectacle is the reign of vision, Vision means externality. Now externality means the dispossession of ‘one's own being. “The more man contemplate, the less hes," Debord says. This may sound anti- Platonic. Indeed the main source forthe ‘que ofthe spectacle is of course, Feuerbach’s critique of religion. Ie what sustains that eritique-—namely, the Romantic idea of truth as uunseparateness But that idea itself remains inline with he Platonic dis pparagement of the mimetic image. The contemplation that Debord denounces isthe thearieal or mimetic contemplation, the contemplation ‘of the suffering tha is provoked by division, “Separation i the alpha and dhe omega of spectacle,” he writes. What man gazes cin his scheme ithe activity that has been stolen from him is his own essence torn away from him, cured foreign to him, hostile to him, making for a col lective world whose reality is nothing but mans oven dispossession. Either, according to the Brechtian paradigm, theatrical mediation makes the audience aware of the social situ- ation on which theater itself rests, prompting the audience to act in con- ‘sequence. Or, according to the Artaudian ‘scheme, it makes them abandon the position of spectator: No longer seated in front of the spectacle, they are instead surrounded by the perfor- mance, dragged into the circle of the action, which gives them back their col- “S| lective energy. In both cases the theater isa self-suppressing mediation. rom this perspective there sno contradiction between the quest for aatheater that ean realize its tre esence and the critique ofthe spectack “Good” theater is posted as a theater that deploy its separate reality ‘only inorder to suppress to turn the theatrical form nto a form of life ‘of the community. The paradox of the spectator is pat ofan intellee ‘ual disposition hats, even in the name ofthe theater, in keeping with the Platonic dismissal of the theater This framework is built around 3 ‘numberof core ideas that must be called into question. Indeed, we must {question the very footing on which those ideas ae based. lam speak: ing ofa whole set of relations, resting on some key equivalences and some key oppositions: the equivalence of theater and community of| secing and passivity, of externality and separation, of mediation and simulaerums the opposition of collective and individual, image and living reality, activity and passivity, sel possession and alienation This set of equivalences and oppos ‘ions makes fora eather tricky deamatargy ‘of guileand redemprion. Theater scharged swith making spectators passive in oppo tion to its very essence, which allegedly consists in the sel-aetvty ofthe comma nity. AS a consequence, it sets iself the task of reversing its own effect and com> ppensting forts own guilt by giving back tothe spectators their self consciousness or self- activity. The theatrical stage and the theatrical performance thus become the vanishing mediation beeween the evil ofthe spectacle and the virtue ofthe rue theater. They present to the collective audience performances intended to reach the spectators how they can stop being spectators and become performers of & collective activity ithe, according tothe :n paradigm, theatrical mediation makes the audience aware of al situation on which theater itself rest, prompting the audience ro act in consequence. Or, according tothe Artaudian scheme, it makes them abandon the postion of spectator: No longer seated in font ofthe spectacle, they ae instead surrounded by the performance, dragged ino the circle ofthe ation, which gives them back their collective energy. In both cass the theater isa slfsuppressing mediation, “This isthe point where the descriptions and propositions of ntellec: tual emancipation ener into the picture and help us reframe it. Obviously, this idea ofa selF-suppressing mediation is well known tous. Kis pre cisely the process tha is supposed to take placein che pedagogical rla- tion. Inthe pedagogical process the role of the schoolmaster is posited as the act of suppressing the distance between his knowledge and the ignorance ofthe ignorant. His lessons and exercises are aimed atcontinuously reducing the gap between knowledge and ignorance. Unfortunately, in order to reduce the gap, he must reinstate ir cease lesl. In order to replace ignorance with adequate knowledge, he must always keepa step ahead ofthe ignorant student who is losing his igno- ranee. The reason for ths is simple: In the pedagogical scheme, the ignorant person is not only the one who does not know what he does norknow; heisas well the ane who ignores that he does not know what he does nor know and ignores how to know it. The master isnot only he who knows precisely what remains unknown to the ignorant; he also knows how to make it knowable, at what time and what place, according to what protocol. On the one hand pedagogy is set up as proces of objective transmission: one piece of knowledge ater another piece, one word after another word, one rule or theorem after another. This knowledge is supposed to be conveyed directly from the master’s ‘mind oF from the page of the hook tothe mind ofthe pupil. But this equal transmission is predicated ona relation of inequality. The master alone knows the right way, time, an place for that “equal” transmis sion, because he knows something that the ignorant will never know, short of becoming a master himself, something thats more important than the knowledge conveyed. He knows the exact distance berween, ignorance and knowledge. That pedagogical distance berwoen a dete ‘mined ignorance and a determined knowledge isin face a metaphor. It isthe metaphor ofa radical break between the way ofthe ignorant stu dent andthe way ofthe master, the metaphor ofa radical break berween ‘vo intelignces “The master cannot ignore tha the so-called ignorant pupil who sisi feoat of him in fact knows a lot of things, which he has learned on bis ‘wn, by looking ar and listening tothe world around him, by figuring ‘ut the meaning of what he has seen and head, by repeating what he has heard and learned by chance, by comparing what he discovers with what he already knows, and so on. The master cannot ignore thatthe ignorant pupil has undertaken by these same means the apprenticeship that isthe precondition of all others the apprenticeship of his mother tongue: But forthe master thisis only the knowledge ofthe gnorant the knowledge ofthe litle child who sees and hears at random, compares and guesses by chance, and repeats by routine, without understanding the reason forthe effects he observes and reproduces. The role ofthe ‘maser is dhs to break with that process of hit and-miss groping It isto teach the pupil the knovledge of the knowledgeable, ints own way—the vay ofthe progresive method, which dismisses all groping andall chance by explaining items in order, from the simplest tothe most complex, according to what the pupil is capable of understanding, with respec t0 hisage or social background and socal expectations. ‘The primary knowledge that the master owns isthe “knowledge of ignorance.” Iris the presupposition of radical break berween wo forms ‘ofintlligence. This is also the primary knowledge that he transmits to the dent the knowledge that he must have chings explained to him in ‘order to understand, the knowledge that he cannot understand on his ‘own. Its the knowledge of his incapacity: In this way, progressive instru ‘ion isthe endless verification of its starting pint inequality. That endless verification of inequality is what Jacotot calls the proces of sulifcation The opposite of sulfation is emancipation. Emancipation isthe pro- cess of verification ofthe equality of intelligence. The equality of ince fence isnot the equality ofall manifestations of intelligence. It is the quality ofmtllgence in all is manifestations means that there so tap between two forms ofineligence, The human animal learns every~ as he has learned his mother tongue, ashe has learned to venture ‘through the forest of things and signs that surrounds him, in order to take his place among his fellow humans—by observing, comparing one ‘hing with another thing, one sign wth one fac, one sign with another sign, and repeating the experiences he as frst encountered by chance. If the “ignorant” person who doesn't know how to read knows only one thing by heat, be ita simple prayer, he can compare thar knowledge with something of which he remains ignorant: the words ofthe same prayer written on paper. He can learn, sign after sign the resemblance of that of which e is ignorant to that which he knows, He can do tif at each step, he observes what iin font of hin tells what he as seen, and ‘vetifies what he has told. From the ignorant person tothe scientist who builds hypotheses, itis always che same intelligence that is at work: an intelligence that makes figures and comparisons to communicate its intellectual adventures and to understand what another intelligence is trying to communicate rit in turn. "This poetic work of tanslation is che fest condition of any appren- ticeship Intellectual emancipation, a Jacotor conceived oft, means the Awareness and the enactment ofthat equal power of translation and counter teansation, Emancipation entails an idea of distance apposed tthe stult- fying one. Speaking animals ate distant animals eho try to communicate hough the forest of signs. Is this sense of distance thatthe “ignorant master"—the master who ignores inequality—is teaching, Distance isnot aneril that shouldbe abolished. cis the normal condition of communica- tion. Ieisnota gap that calls foran exper inthe art of suppessing it. The slitance that the “ignorant” person has to cover isnot che gap betweea his, ignorance and the knowledge of his maser it isthe distance between what he already knows and what he still does’t know but can leara by the same process. To help his pupil cover that distance, the “ignorant master” nced not he ignorant. He need only dissociate his knowledge from his mastery. He does not each his knowledge to the stents. He ‘commands them to venture forth nthe forest, o report what they se, what they think of what they have seen, to verify it, and so.on. What he ignores isthe gap between two intelligences. It isthe linkage between the knowledge ofthe knowledgeable and the ignorance of the ignorant. Any distance isa matter of happenstance. Fach inellecwal act weaves a.casual ‘thread between a form of ignorance and a form of knowledge. No kind ‘of socal hierarchy can be predicated on this sense of distance. ‘Wha sche relevance ofthis story with respect ro the question ofthe spectator? Dramaturges today arent outta explain to thee audience theU truth about social relations and che best means to do away with domina tion Butt isnt enough to lose one’ llsions. On the contrary, the loss ofillusions often lads the dramatunge or the performers to increase the pressure on the spectator: Maybe he will now what has to be done, if ‘the performance changes him, if it set hin apart from his passive ati tude and makes him an active participant in the communal worl This ‘sthe frst point that the reformers ofthe theater share with the stuf Jing pedagogue the idea of the gap berween two positions. Even when the dramaturge o the performer doesn't know what he wants the spec- tator to do, he knows at lease thatthe spectator has to do something: site fom passivity to activity. ‘But why not urn things around? Why noe thinkin this case too, that itis precisely the attempr at suppressing the distance that constiutes the distance itself? Why identify the Fat of being seated motionless with inactivity, if noe by the presupposition ofa radical gap between actviy and inactviy? Why identify “looking” with “passivity” ifnot by the presupposition chat looking means looking a the image or the appearance, that it means being separated from the reality that is always behind the Emancipation starts from the prin- SRAAY Uoo chet the configuration of domination and subjection, Istarts when we realize that looking is also an action tha confirms or modifies that distribution, and that “interpreting the world” is already a means of transforming it of reconfiguring it. The spectator is active, jus ike the student or the Scientist: He observes, he selects, he compares, he interprets. He con neets what he observes with many other things he has observed on other stages, in ther kinds of paces. He makes his poem with the poem that is performed in front of im. She pariiparsin the performance she is able o tell her own story about the story thats in front of her Or if she isable to undo the performance—for instance, to deny the corporeal ‘energy tha itis supposed to convey the here and now and transform it intoa mere image, by linkingit with something she has readin a baok or dreamed about, that she has lived or imagined, These ae distant viewers And incepreters of what is performed infront of them. They pay atten tion tothe performance tothe exten that they ae distant This isthe second key point: The specta tors see, feel, and understand something t0 the extent that they make their poems asthe poet has done, asthe actors, dancers, or per formers have done. The deamaturge would image? Why identify hearing with being ciple of equality. Itbegins when we like shem tose hissing, fel ha feeling, passive, if not by the presupposition that acting isthe opposite of speaking, ee. these oppositions—looking/knowing, looking/acting, appearancelteality, activity! passivity—are much more than logical ‘oppositions. They are what Lalla partition dismiss the opposition between All Jooking and acting and understand tint tha action n consequence of what, that the distribution of the visible itself is part of the configuration cof domination and subjection. lerstand this lesson of what they see, nd they have sen, fel, and understood. He pro- ceeds from the same presupposition a the stultfying master: the presupposition of an ‘equal, undistorted transmission. The master ofthesensible,a distribution of placesand ot ft starts when we realize that |OOk- presupposes char what the student learas is the capacities or inapacities attached to ing is also an action that confirms precisely what he teaches him. This is the those places. Prin other terms, they ae alle: gories of inequality. This is why you can change the values given to each position withour changing the meaning ofthe opp tions themselves. For instance, you can exchange the positions ofthe superior and the inferior. The spostatoris tsually disparaged because he dacs nothing, while the performers on the stage—or the workers ouside—do something with thei bodies. But itis ‘easy o turn matters around by stating that those who act, those who work with their bodies, are obviously inferior to those who are able to look—that i, those who can contemplate ideas foresce the futur, ot take global view of our world The postions cam be switched, but the structure remains the same. What counts, in ach is only the statement of ‘opposition berween two categories: Thre is one population that canoe do whar che other population does. There is capacity on one side and Incapacity on the other Emancipation start from the opposite principle, the principle of ‘quality. It begins when we dismiss che opposition between looking and sctng and understand thatthe distribution ofthe visible tel is part of ‘or modifies that distribution, and that “interpreting the world” is already a means of transformin ‘asters notion of transmission: There is something on one side, in one mind or one body-—a knowledge, a capaci an encrgy— that must be transferred to the other side, ino the other's mind or bods. The presup. position is thatthe process of learning is not merely the effect ofits ‘eause—teaching—but the vey transmission of the cause: What the st dent learns isthe knowledge ofthe master. That identity of cause and ‘effects the principle of stultifcation. On the contrary hep ‘emancipation isthe dissociation of cause and effect. The para ignorant master lies therein. The student ofthe ignorant master leans what his master doesnot know, since his master commands hi to look for something and to recount everything he discovers along the way ‘hile the master verifies that he i actually looking fort. The student learns something as an effect of is master's mastery. But he doesnot learn his master’s knowledge. ‘The dramaturge and the performer do not want to “teach” anything Indeed, they are more than a litle wary these days about using the stage asa way of teaching. They wantonly bring about form of awareness‘ora force of feeling o action. But sil they make the supposition tha what willbe fel or understood willbe what they have putin theie own scxpc oF petformance. They presuppose the equslty—meaning the homogeneity — DF cause and effect. As we know, this equality rests onan inequality. Ie fests on the presupposition that theresa proper knowledge and proper practice with respect to “distance” and the means of suppressing i. [Now this distance takes on two forms. There i the distance between performer and spectator But there is also the distance inherent inthe performance itself, inasmuch asit isa mediating “spectacle” that stands between the artists idea and the spectator’ fcling and interpretation ‘This spectacle sa third term, to which the other two can refer, but which prevents any kind of “equal” or “undistorted” transmission. eis a medi tion berween them, and that mediation of a third term is crucial inthe [process of intellectual emancipation. To prevent stlificaton there must, he something between the master and the student. The same thing that links them must also separate them. Jacotot posited the book as that in-between ching. The book is the material ching, foreign to both master and student, chrough which they can verify what the student has seen, form of Platonic assignment of bodies to their proper—thatis, to their “communal” —place. “This presupposition against mediation is connected witha third one, the presupposition that the essence of theaters the essence of the com ‘munity. The spectator is supposed tobe redeemed when he is no longer An individual, when he is restored to the status ofa member of a.com ‘unity, when hei carried off ina flood ofthe collective energy or led to the position ofthe citizen who acts asa member ofthe collective. The less the dramaturge knows what the spectators should do asa collective, the more he knovrs that they aust become a collective, turn their mere Agglomeration into the commonity tha they vitally ae. leis igh time, {think o call into question the idea of the theater as a specifically com- ‘munitarian place. eis supposed to be sucha place because, on the stage, real living bodies perform for people who are physically present together inthe same place. In that way i is supposed to provide some unique sense of community, radically diferent from the situation ofthe indi ‘vidual watching television, oF of moviegoers who sicin front of disembodied, projected images. Strange as it may seem, the widespread use of, ‘what he has reported about it, what he chinks T@ common power of spec- _imasesand of all kinds of media in theatrical per- ‘of what he has reported ‘This means that the paradigm of intellectual «emaneipation is clearly opposed to another idea tators is the power of the equality of intelligences. formances hasn't called the presupposition into guestion, Images may take the place of living Ihodies in the performance, bur as long asthe ‘of emancipation on which the reform of theater THIS power binds individuals spectators are gathered there the living and com: has often been grounded—the idea of emanci pation as the reappropriation of a self that hhad been lost in a process of separation. The Debordian critique ofthe spectacle stil rests on the Feverhachian thinking of epeesentation as an alienation ofthe self: The human being teas its human estence away from itself by faming a cclestial world to which the real human world is submited, Inthe same way the essence of human activity is distanced, alienated fom usin the exteririy ofthe spectacle. The mediation ofthe “third term” thus appears asthe instanceof separation, dispossession, snd teachery- An idea of the theater predicated on thatidea ofthe spec. tacle conceives the externality ofthe stage asa kind of tansitory state that has to be superseded, The suppression of that exterioity thus [becomes the telos of the performance. That program demands that the spectators he on the stage and the performers inthe auditorium. Ie, ‘demands thatthe very difference between the 1wo spaces be abolished, that the performance take place anywhere other chan ina theater, ‘Certainly many improvements in theatecal performance resulted fom that breaking down ofthe traditional distribution of places (in the ‘sense of both sites and roles) But the “redistribution” of places i one things the demand that the cheater achieve, as its esence, che gathering ‘fan unseparate community is another thing, The first entails the inven tion of new forms of intellectual adventure; the second entails anew together to the very extent munitaran essence ofthe theater appears to be that it keeps them apart from each other; itis the power each of us possesses in equal measure to make ‘our own way in the world. saved. Thus it seems impossible to escape the 4question, What specifically happens among the spectators in a theater that doesn't happen csewhere? Is there something more interactive, ‘more communal, that goes on between them than berwen individuals who watch the same show con TV atthe same time? | thin tha chis “somthing” is nothing more than the presupposition ‘hac the theater is communitarian in and of self. That presupposition of ‘what “theater” means always runs ahead ofthe pesformance and pre- dates its actual effects, Buti a theater, of infront ofa performance, just ‘sina museum, ata school, oon the street, there are only individuals, ‘weaving their own way through the forest of words, act, and things that standin front of them or around them. The collective power thats com> ‘mon to these spectators is ot the status of members of a collective body Nor s ita peculiar kind of interactivity Ie is the power to translate i their own way what they ar looking at. Itisthe power to connect it with, the intellectual adventure that makes any of them similar to any other insofar as his or her path looks unlike anyother. The common power is the power ofthe equality of intelligences. This power binds individuals together tothe very extent that it keeps them apart fom each other iis the power each of os possesses in equal measure to make our own way in the world, What has to be pat to the est by our performances—whetherteaching or acting, speaking, writing, making art, ete.—is not the capacity of aggregation of a collective but the capacity of the anony ‘mous, the capacity that makes anybody equal to everybody. This capacity works through unpredictable and irreducible distances. It ‘works through an unpredictable and ieeducible play of associations and dissociation ‘Associating and dissociating instead of being the privileged medium that conveys the knowledge o energy that makes people active—this could be the principle of an “emancipation of the spectator,” which ‘means the emancipation of any of us as a spectator. Spectatorship is fo a passivity that must be turned into activity Its our normal situa tion. We learn and reach, we act and knosy, as spectators who link what they se with what they have seen and rok, done and dreamed. There is no privileged medium, just as there is no privileged starting point Everywhere there ae starting points and turing points from which we learn new things, if we frst dismiss the presupposition of distance, se ‘ond the distribution ofthe cols, and third the borders berween tert ties, We don’t need to turn spectators into actors. We do need to acknowledge that every spectator is already an actor in his own story and tha every actor isin turn the spectator ofthe same kind of tory. We feed? turn the ignorant into the leaned of, merely out ofa desire to ‘overturn things, make che student or the ignorant person the master of his masters. Ler me make a lite detour through my own political and academic experience belong to a generation that was poised hetween to con -etng perspectives: According to the firs, chose who possessed the intl ligence ofthe socal system had to pas thei leaening on to those who salfred under dha system, so that they would then take action to over ‘throw it. According tothe second, the supposed learned persons were in fact ignorant: Because they knew nothing of what exploitation and rebellion were, they had to become the students of the so-called ignorant ‘workers. Therefore, initially I tried to relaborate Marxist theory in ‘order to make its theoretical weapons available co anew revolutionary movement, before setting out to learn from those who worked inthe factories what exploitation and rebellion meant. For me, as for many “other people of my generation, none of those attempts proved very su cessful. That's why I decided to look into the history of the workers? movement, to find out the reasons for the continual mismatching of workers and the intellectuals who came and visited chem, either ro instruct chem of to be instructed by them. It was my good fortune to discover that cis relationship wasn'ta matter of knowledge on one side and ignorance on the other, nor was ta mater of knowing versus act ing oof individuality versus community. One day in May, during the 1970s, as Iwas looking through a workers cozrespondence from the 1830+ to determine what the condition and consciousness of workers had been at that time discovered something uit diffrent: che adver tures of ewo visitors, also on a day in May, bur some hundred and forty year before I stumbled upon their ettersin the archives. One ofthe ro correspondents had ust been intoduced int the utopian community of| ‘the Saint Simonians, and he recounted o his friend his daily schedule in utopia: work, exercises, games, singing, and stories. His fiend in aen wrote to him about a country outing that he ha just gone on with wo ‘other workers looking to enjoy their Sunday leisure. Bur it wasnt the usual Sunday leisure ofthe worker seeking to restore his physical and mental forces forthe following week of work. Ir was in fact a break through into another kind of lisure—that of aesthetes who enjoy the forms, lights, and shades of nature, of philosophers who spend their time exchanging metaphysical hypotheses ina country inn, and ofapos- tles who set outro communicate thei faith to the chance companion they meet along the road “Those workers who should have provided me information about the conditions of labor and forms of clas-consciousness in the 1830s instead provided something quite different a sense ofikenes or equal ‘They too were spectators and vistors, amid their own class. Their activ ity as propagandists could not he torn from thee “passivity” as mere strollers and contemplators. The chronicle of ther leisure entailed a reframing ofthe very relationship between doing, seeing, and saying. By becoming “spectators,” they overthrew the given distribution of these sible, which had i that chose who work have no time lef to stroll and Took at random, that the members of collective ody have no time to be “individuals.” Thisis what emancipation means: the blureing ofthe ‘opposition between those who look and those who act, betwen those who are individuals and those who are members of a collective bod. ‘Whar those days brought our chroniclers was not knowledge and energy for furue action. Iwas the reconfiguration bic et munc of the distribu: tion of Time and Space. Workers’ emancipation was not about acquiring, the knowledge of their condition. Ie was about configuring atime and a space tha invalidated the old distribution of the sensible, which doomed workers to do nothing with their nights but restore ther forces for work the nextday Understanding the sense ofthat break in che heat of sme also meant putting into play another kind of knowledge, predicated not on the pre- supposition of any gap but on the presupposition of likeness. These men, 00, were intelletuals—as anybody i. They were visitors and specta- tor, just ike the researcher who, one hundred and forty years lates, would read cei eters in library, us like vistors to Marxist theory oF atthe gates ofa factory. There was no gap to bridge beeween intellect alsand workers, actors and spectators no gap between two populations, ‘wo situations, or wo ages. On the contrary, there was a likeness that had to be acknowledged and put into play in the very production of knowledge Putting itinto play means wo things. Fist it meant reject the borders between disciplines. Telling the (history of those worker days and nights forced me to blue the boundary between ce field of empirical” history and the field of “pure” philosophy. The stoy that those workers told was about time, about the loss and reappropriation ‘of time. To show what it meant, I had to put their account in directrelation wth the theoretical discourse ofthe philosopher who had, long, ago in the Republic, told the same story by explaining that in a well ordered community everybody must do only one thing, his or her own business, and chat workers in any case had no time to spend anywhere other than their workplace or to-do anything but the job fitting the Uinjeapacity with which nature had endovted them. Philosophy, then, could no longer present itself as a sphere of pure thought separated from the sphere of empirical facts, Nor wast the theoretical interpretation of those facts. There were neither facts nor interpretations. There were two ways of telling stoves. Blurring the border berween academic disciplines also meant blurring the hierarchy between the levels of discourse, betwen the narration ofa story and the philosophical or scientific explanation of it o the truth lying behind or beneath it. There was no metadiscourse explcating the truth of slower level of discourse. What had tobe done was a work of translation, showing how empirical stories and philosophical discourses translae each other, Producing a new knowledge meant ‘venting the idiomatic form that would make inasmuch as it effects the crossing of borders and the confusion of roles merely as means of increasing the power ofthe performance without ‘questioning its grounds. “The third way—the best way in my view—does noe aim a the ampli cation of the effect bur atthe transformation of the eauselettct scheme itself, ar the dismissal ofthe set of oppositions that grounds the proces of stultifcation. It invalidates the opposition between activity and passivity as well asthe scheme of “equal transmission” and the communicarian idea of the theater that infact makes it an allegory of inequality. The ‘crossing of borders and the confusion of oles shoulda’ lead toa kind of “hypertheate” turning spectatorshi into activity by turing represents tion into presence. On che contrary, theater should question its privileging of living presence and bring the stage back ra level of equality with the telling of story or the writing and the reading ofa book. Ie shouldbe the institution ofa new stage of equality, where the different kinds of perfor ‘mances would be translated into one another Inall those performances, in fac, ie should bea matter of linking what one knows with what one does not know; of being ac the same translation possible. I had to use that idiom totellof my own intellectual adventure ac che risk thatthe idiom would remain “unread: able” for those who wanted to know the cause fof the story is true meaning, or the lesson for action that could be drawn from it. had to produce a discourse that would be read: able only for those who would make their ‘own translation from the pont of view of theie ‘own adventure "That personal detour may lead us back ro the core of our problem. These issues of ross ing borders and blurring the dsteibution of roles ae defining characteristics of theater and ‘of contemporary at roday, when all artistic Theater should question its privi- leging of living presence and bring the stage back to a level of equality with the telling of a story or the writing and the reading of a book. It should call for spectators who are active interpreters, who render their own translation, who appro- priate the story for themselves, and who ultimately make their own story out of it. An emancipated community is in fact a community of storytellers and translators. time performers who display their competences and spectators who are looking to find what those competences might produce in a new context, among unknown people, Arist, ike researchers, build the stage where the man festation and the effect of thei competences become dubious as they frame the story ofa new adventure ina new idiom, The effect of the idiom cannot be anticipated. Ie calls for spectators who are active interpreters, who render thei own teansltion, who appropeiate the story for themselves, and who ultimately ‘make their own story out of it. An emancipated ‘community isin fact community of storytellers and cranslators ‘competences stray from their own field and ‘exchange places and powers with all others, We have plays without words and dance with words; installations and performances instead of “pas tic” works; video projections turned into cycles of frescoes photographs turned into living pictures or history paintings; sculprue chat becomes Ihypcrmetie show ete. Nos, there are three ways of understanding and practicing this confusion of the genres. There is the revival of the ‘Gesamtkienstwerk, whichis supposed to be the apotheosis of art asa form oflife but which proves instead tobe the apotheosis of strong artistic «08 or ofa kind of hyperactive consumerism if ot of hoth a the same time. There is the idea ofa “hybridization” of che means of art, which complements the view of our age as one of mass individualism expressed through the relentless exchange between roles and identities, realty and vierualiy life and mechanical prostheses, and soon. In my view, thse ‘ond interpretation ultimately lads othe same place as the frst one—t0 ‘another kind of hyperactive consumerism, another kindof stlication, Tawa tata this may sound ike words, mere words, But I woulda take that as an insult, We've heard so many speakers pass their words off as more than words, as passwords enabling Usto enter a new ife, We've cen 0 many spectacles boasting of being no mete spectacles ur ceemonials of community. Even now in spite ofthe so-called postmodern skepticism about changing the way we ive, one ses fo many shows posing a religious mysteries that it might not seem so ‘outragcous to hear, fr a change, that words ace only words. Breaking aveay from the phantasms of the Word made flesh and the spectator tured active, knowing that words are oaly words and spectacles only spectacles, may help us better understand how words, stories, and pe formances can help us change something inthe world we liven.