A Selective (Non-)Taking up

Katrin Ackerl Konstantin, Psychology & Acting Studies, University of Klagenfurt & University of Salzburg

A selective (non-)taking up from the past causes a progressive exclusion and invisibility in the present, which in turn affects the future. The past itself, however, is nothing static, nothing closed, but is performatively linked to the present and behaves performatively itself, just like the present, just like the future. If I change a visualization of the past in the present that has not been taken up until now, it affects not only the present but also the past, which now provides multiple, different narratives. At least there is the possibility of this in the present, or as Muñoz differentiates, the potential for it. For Muñoz possibility refers to something inherent in the present; potentiality does not (yet) manifest itself in the present, but it does hold a possible future. This means engaging in a "temporal disorganization" (Muñoz, 2009: 97) and thereby considering possibilities and potentialities that are not yet there but could be. In his definition of queerness and the "queer aesthetics" (ibid: 135), these remind us of something that is missing, something that has not been considered, not (yet) thought, as a form of critique. Muñoz appeals here to an "anticipatory illumination that radiates from certain works of art" (ibid: 99). The contribution for the conference - Reverberations of Empire: Histories, Legacies & Lineages- offers insights into the artistic research project show.Rooms, especially the events „Biographical fempath I and II“ which deals with strategies that make the interplay of past, present and utopia visible through artistic interventions in public space.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 76. Activism and Queer Historiography