In the autumn of 2006, we started to look at questions that are raised or implied by the leitmotifs of documenta 12. Our concern is not so much to find direct answers to these questions, as ways of approaching and paraphrasing them – to do a kind of groundwork on defining complex themes such as modernity or bare life. Like the issues »Tactics/Topographies« and »Different Modernities«, the present issue with the title »Life/Survival« also applies this indirect approach and tries to map out a field that is influenced in many different ways by these two key concepts.
»What is bare life?« is a question that has been a central focus of art and theory over the past few years. The vulnerability and fragility of human life has not just become increasingly apparent in the global media context; it has almost turned into an everyday companion. At the same time, however, this also makes us more aware of the relevance of survival strategies, including small-scale techniques that are often overlooked.
Rosi Braidotti tackles the area of bio-politics, the ever more comprehensive and highly technological administration of life and death, by addressing the critical aspect of its inherent nihilism. As a contrast, she tries to sketch out the positive picture of a new vitalism and a form of ethics to go with it.
Last summer, the Lebanese artist and intellectual Tony Chakar experienced first-hand what it means to be suddenly reduced to the function of mere survival. His reaction to the Israeli air raids makes manifold use of literary images – not least in order to give the scene of the catastrophe a dimension that can be consciously borne.
Tom Holert, in his essay on selected documentary films, investigates the specific problems of representation associated with »bare life«. Refugee and migration issues have become popular topics in film, perhaps partly because they highlight the aspect of »life« right in front of the representing subjects. Several other articles are also about this fundamental resource, investigating the disputed nature of this terrain, whether by examining films about dying (Judith Fischer) or, very differently, investments in the health industry (Hans-Christian Dany).
The neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s and 1970s form a concluding focus. Although they seem remote from the context of bare life, there are a number of factors in the movements of these decades, whether in Poland (Luiza Nader) or Yugoslavia (Jesa Denegri), that give clues as to the nature of artistic survival under difficult circumstances.