Game and Commitment: the Procedure

by Javier Daulte / translation by Mireia Gubianas

Between 2001 and 2003 finals I wrote three theoretical works, all under the generic title of Game and Commitment. The connection that exists between these works is less obvious than at first glance it could be believed. In fact, the first of the texts was drafted without suspecting that it would have two successive parts. When I wrote the second (The Responsibility) I was rehearsing myself Besame Mucho and in that article I tried to systematize a thought that was testimony to certain procedures used in the elaboration of that show (partly due to the fact that it had detected that the premises set forth in Game and Commitment I, the Procedure -now transformed into The truth- They derived from the experience with my previous show, Gore).

Instead, while working on The Responsibility, I knew there would be a third job, Freedom (I suppose my most recent shows,Are you there i 4D Optical They have been the reference for production). Here I gather all three works. I do not know if its union is fertile with respect to the thought that each one of them intends to state. In order to relativize the appearance of the system, I have preserved the writing dates of each other. It will be necessary to suppose that many things happened in the temporary lapse that separates the emergence of each one of the texts.

JD, July of the 2004

 

I. The Truth

An affirmation against the fight between the playful fact and the commitment in theater  

The theater responsible: a concern

In recent times, the theater has acquired a moral dimension that has borrowed or has been imposed in some way, but that does not correspond to it. I speak of a certain theater (now it is not important if it is good, bad or regular) to which I would like to call responsible theater and maybe didactic or, definitively, because no, dictatorial. A theater that uses the theater to talk about important things! *

*I'm talking about the theater that is usually called "engaged", a theater that can be seen on the official circuit (almost always), in the commercial (less and less) and in the alternative (more and more).

This is fine, we would think in the first instance; In fact I thought it for many years, especially when in Argentina we had one of the most severe dictatorships in the western world and I felt (between my 14 and 18 years) that the theater was good because they told me things that They could not be said elsewhere. The climax of this public and at the same time clandestine rebellion was, as everyone knows, the phenomenon of the Open Theater. Of course, at that time and under certain circumstances, what was important inside and outside the theaters was unequivocal: to speak against the horror of the dictatorships / dictatorships in all its variants. But the time of Teatro Abierto happened, like the governments de facto.

Today, the problem of what is important is, at least, arguable. In order to see it a little: what are these important things ?, who determines them? Today, I have to confess, if there are important things, I would not recommend going to the theater. He goes to the theater to see theater. Or as Alain Badiou says, he goes to the theater to be hit (by the theater). The theater as a alarm clock of consciences It's more an exception than a rule. In fact, when Hamlet plans representation to catch Claudi's conscience he is ordering a trap and Shakespeare himself says it.

Today is the theater that has fallen into a perverse trap, because when it deals with what is supposed important it no longer has the effect of a alarm clock of consciences, but on the contrary, reassures them. Maybe the role of alarm clock of consciences current corresponds to television. We are at a time when the theater tends to recover its unnecessary condition, which extends its horizons. Before, a theater not compromised with the subjects important It was a frivolous theater and Mecca was Avenida Corrientes, Buenos Aires. Now it's not like that. The important thing In the theater it has blurred and before lamenting it, it would be necessary to celebrate it. The determination beforehand what is it important It naturally involves a didactic, verticalist attitude and, as I said above, dictatorial.

The game

Let's look at the phenomenon of theater from a perspective perhaps a little schizoid: A group of people shakes for a couple of hours on a platform. Another group of people is witness to this fatigue. How serious can these people, men and women of an activity called the theater, when they emulate great battles, imitate altius heroes of history or evil deeds, when they simulate great tragedies without credibility? The least that can be said about these men and women is that they are irreverent, that they make fun of (by the mere fact of reproducing them) of all the human activities and transform them into a pathetic celebration by which, besides, they cover some money to whom it tries to attend such nonsense; And, not happy with this, above all, we must applaud them to promote different vanities.

The pretension (absurd, you look where you look) is that it fills us with aesthetic emotion with this perverse act that is emulate the human condition (perverse act or dream of passion that, the more enthusiastic it is, the more evident it does its faulty condition). The theater, as a game, is a place of discomfort, Brecht perceived it, Beckett too; His obscenity is such that nausea can occur to us; And if we think more than twice, we would agree that such an irreverent activity should be prohibited. Fortunately, culture (one of the most captivating inventions known) works, as a good adoptive father, of guarantor of this bastard practice. Why does the King support the buffoon who laughs at him before his noses with his own consent? Why does Her Majesty support this slave who, without a doubt, could not tolerate the most beloved friend and counselor? For a simple reason: the buffoon plays a game whose rules the King owns; If the limit of the rule is respected, the mockery is accepted; If the limit is mocked, grace disappears, like the head of the poor buffoon. The King of today is La Cultura. Art is free in that it plays a game whose rules Culture is sovereign. But this is where the paradox emerges. If Culture is an institution born from human manifestations, why is it, Culture, what dictates the rules? La Cultura works as a security awareness company. And the tranquility of consciousness, after the economic, is the most precious asset of our bourgeois world. Why the theater can not make fun of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, or the victims of the AMIA? Why, suddenly, the game becomes serious? Freud said, talking about children's play and the reason of the game, understood as a lucid and singular thing: what is opposed to children's play is not seriousness, but reality. So, if the theater is game and the game exists because it is opposed to reality, what is the reason to reconcile reality with the theater? And when I speak of reality, I do not speak of realism, that is clear, but rather of a clipping of the world, of the symbolic universe and of the imaginary. Therefore we affirm: The theater tends to oppose reality. This is a first axiom. However, the game has its own reality; It is a parallel world, a world for itself, infinite and closed at the same time; infinite because the possibilities and variants it has are governed by chance, and closed because this infinite never exceeds the limits of the game. I mean that there are not two equal dice games, but we will never stop playing the dice. Moving this scheme to the universe of the theater, we can say that the theater is reinvented in an infinite and unpredictable way (the Greeks could not imagine Müller), but this reinvention is not perversion because it does not dismiss its own nature. To paraphrase Lacan, the theater can be anything unless it is anything, that is to say, and to give an example, the theater can be what you want while it does not become television, or plastic, or dance, for the simple reason that so it would stop being a theater and we would start talking about something else. The disciplines of the theater dance, the installations, the Happening, etc., have a complex particularity: they do not play with the limits, they are the limit But this is another discussion in which I do not want to involve myself anymore. The game implies an essential element for its execution: the commitment. But what commitment does he talk about? game? Commitment to the rules of this game and with nothing else. But keep in mind: the rules of the game may be rules that do not show the game as such, but rather as something else; but this is exactly the paradox of the game and its commitment: the more I am committed to the rules, the more entertaining and exciting the game will become and, at the same time, the less similar it will be to a game. Commitment gives meaning to the rule and the rule gives meaning to the game. If the commitment is not exercised, there is no game. If the commitment is radicalized, the game is back (in the best case) fearfully dangerous. We try to play picaparet or cooked to hide in adults. We would see at first that it is very difficult to commit to the rules, and then, that these games prove to be very distressing. Because the commitment is not only intellectual, but also emotional. A well-played game is always attractive but it is not necessarily fun. When it comes to the game, it seeks that its rules captivate us and once captivated, we excite, suffer and we become anxious in an artificial way. When the game ends we will take a beer with our feared and hated opponent, as well as the actors who interpret Hamlet and Claudius. Committing yourself to the rules of the game is not knowing the rules to win, but the commitment implies that the game can be won in the best possible way. When someone does not commit to the rules of the trick, so much does whoever is winning, the game ceases to have interest. It's when it's said: to play without desire you do not play. The play in theater has strange rules and each experience has its own rules and it is necessary to establish or discover them. It is also true that these rules generally include people / characters with their own emotions, with their history, their lives. This particular condiment that works as bait for fishing identifications is the great contributor to the generation of the illusion, whose embossed version is the trap. The responsible theater stands as a trap, the playful theater, like illusion. What's the difference between? trap i illusion? The illusion It's for everyone, it's donated; the trap points to a particular viewer (if this viewer in particular is not in the room, the representation of the work loses track, if the Claudis do not attend the work prepared by the Hamlets, the plan can not move forward) . It is essential to make this distinction: the theater as a trap It is an exception, even when this exception has the deceptive appearance of making the theater something useful, important. In accordance with the terms established up to now, the only theater that could be compromised (with a particular situation) is that of the trap. What commitment can theater make as a game that hardly seeks to build an illusion? The answer may sound "uncompromising." Let's put it this way: In theater, the only possible compromise is with the rule. This is the second axiom.

The Procedure

When I started reading the theater I was particularly interested in the pieces by Beckett, Pinter or him Marat Sade by Peter Weiss. This showy element had a lot to do with the following observation: in these works I found something more interesting than just the themes that touched. I mean the main finding of Happy days and from End of the game I had to see, for me, what I called at that time one device, something that made the work work alone beyond the precise contents of the same work; Or, to put it all, the contents were nothing more than the natural consequence of the implementation of a mechanism I called device. It is enough to put an actress who has never read Beckett on a stage, immobilize her waist down, give her a bag or wallet where inside there is a toothbrush, a toothpaste tube about to finish, an umbrella, a mirror, a revolver, and something else; then we tell him to do and say what he can and wants, as long as he never announces or denounces his obvious condition of immobility of waist on the bottom, but on the contrary, it is sold out of the extraordinary possibilities that it has, of to what he can do from that position. Well, that's how we'll get the first act of Happy days. Then we immobilize the same actress in the back and give him more or less slogans as in the previous case and we will have Happy days whole, first and second act. This absolutely tendentious theoretical experiment tries to affirm that Happy days It is primarily a mechanism that works beyond its contents. Now what he says and what Winnie does not say is another issue, and it's certainly not the same as his words have been written by Beckett or by Sofovich, but the mechanism is still indifferent to this question and it works. What is supposed to be the most emblematic of the piece (the fact that Winnie is buried) is presented by Beckett as a convention; this is his genius. Place rules and counter-rules and then just limit yourself to follow them. The rules are set forth impeccably, the work is only limited to fulfill them. Let's take it now End of the game, it may be one of the brightest mechanisms that are known in this regard. A man can not walk and can not see it. Another man can not be sitting. The food is locked and locked under a combination. The combination is only known to anyone who does not walk. But (here is the fundamental element) there are no wheels in the chair of the paralytic, so it depends on the other to go to the safe and get the food. The dependency relationship is established beyond any psychological mechanism. The mechanism is arbitrary, this is the game. In the case of End of the game, the game is subtle, in the case of Happy days his abuse comes to light. Waiting for Godot It is a piece with an extreme elemental mechanism (which, on the other hand, has been reproduced until exhaustion by the dramaturgy of the last twenty years or more) so the characters can converse even too much. Whatever the case, in all cases a system of relations is established. Relationships between elements. It's about mathematical relationships. Mathematics develops relationships systems, explores them and tempts the limits. Mathematics does so much if he works with numbers and letters or Clovs and Hams, meaning that he is indifferent to the content. In the system of mathematical relationships that can be deduced from a material I will call it Procedure. This is a third axiom. He Procedure (concept that follows the line of the Game) is arbitrary in the same way that the rules of every game are arbitrary. The rules are what they are because they do. The rule is not questioned. It is accepted Why is Winnie buried? Because yes. Nobody explains why this would disrupt the Procedure making it almost in an allegorical landscape. Its importance is that and a rule and its wealth is the combination of this potential rule with other rules *; he Procedure It is the result of this combination. Uniting all this with what we have said previously, we can state a fourth axiom: Every procedure is mathematical; that is to say that, like Mathematics, it is indifferent to the contents. Now, the theater is not Mathematical or, at the least, it is not only. There is something, an indispensable narrative matter without which the Procedure can not start up. To Procedure li it suits An argument for him to start and at the same time dissolve it by giving it another look. The argument disguises the Procedure The realism that, for better or worse, tends to confuse everything, had the bad idea of ​​adopting psychology (a discipline that was at its peak in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) as a diligent daughter and with its rules dyed a large part of dramatic literature from the 20th century and from which it has just begun; That is why when we try to unravel the procedures of the works of realism we find, just beginning, talking about psychology without knowing too much. Stanislavski was taken from this fashion, something inevitable when he had to ride Chekhov. In fact, his model of text analysis for the actor is based on his experience with Otel·lo, the most psychological piece of Shakespeare. And that brings us to another matter.

The Goal

The theater suffers from another highly consensual evil: the conceptualization of the goal. We constantly hear about the purpose of the work, the objective of the character, what it means with the work, etc., etc. It is quite noticeable that when talking about the purpose of the work, because of this or that work at a certain time, there is talk of something that exceeds the same work. When, for example, a piece of the classical repertoire is taken up, the question arises as to whether the work is still in force. But what aspect of the work is usually spoken in these cases? From its theme and not from the game and its rules; That is, a fairly sociological play is practiced amateur, by the way, and very well-intentioned, at best. Even so, the only thing that interests you when it comes to talking about the validity of a work is its own Procedure it is still valid. Chekhov is still a theater or his works are excellent television scripts? Why when you talk about Dollhouse after two minutes we are talking about psychology and feminism? Why can not we talk about its theatrical validity?

*Simply put, for example, the two rules that combine to perfection to produce the system of relationships (Procedure) of Happy days are:
a) The actress / character is buried.
b) The actress / character never speaks of being buried; neither of the causes, nor of the consequences.

This phenomenon, which no one can easily abstract, has its origin in the formation of a particular idiosyncrasy (we are heirs -fills, grandchildren and great-grandchildren- of a psychological tradition) and a model. The model was built by Stanislavski. When Stanislavski analyzes Otel·lo, in the characters of the work he finds targets subtly and brilliantly traced, and it is from this that it can create a formidable tool for the actor. Naturally, fascinated with this issue, Stanislavski generates a very complex system that is assumed universal (partial objectives, the super-objective, etc.) and that well-regarded, can only be applied to some works and especially to Otel·lo. Because? Because a Otel·lo There is an invention of Shakespeare hardly superable and endemonially captivating: Iago. This is the character, perhaps the only one in the dramatic literature in which the objective and the character, and which can be completely analyzed from this perspective. But the fact that Iago sustains its objective until the last consequences is in fact nothing more than the execution until the last consequences of a Procedure exquisite *. The problem is that thanks to the deceptive appearance (the costume) of the Procedure, we believe to read the perfect construction of a complex psychological character. And the most important thing here is that Iago's essential is that it is a formidable engine that puts in motion the incredible dramatic machinery that is Otel·lo as a work Any analysis of a character who intends to follow the analysis model applicable to Iago vacillates in an inexorable way, because the characters, like people, always have little clarity about what they want, or this one steal It changes constantly (exactly the opposite of what happens with Iago). We think of Pinter's characters, for example, or in the Hamlet himself. The only characters that appear directly with the Iago model, are those of the police genre: the criminal consequent and the investigator; but it is clear that we are not talking about characters but models that, depending on each case, are nothing more than procedures more or less wisely constructed (Oedipus is a researcher, hence his character as a character with objective). The characters have a purpose during the construction of the piece and is to become elements that guarantee the operation of the piece. The actors and the directors must also have this sole purpose. The only one Goal Possible in theater is the operation of the scene. Thegoal It must be such that it becomes an accomplice of the general mechanism of the piece. In other words. Thegoal is to make the game effective. The purpose of all the elements that make up the phenomenon of the theater is to return an effective procedure. This is the fifth axiom.

* A Otel, el procedure of the piece and the procedure de Iago They are identical and they appear overlapping.

The fidelity Goal of the character, goal of the actor, goal of the piece, goal of the author and the director. Everything seems to be confused. The word goal It has been too much, overwhelmed by the vast majority of theater workshops where the show is taught. At the end of this work, I think the word should be changed Goal for Loyalty.
When assembling a play we all have to become accomplices for the construction of a deception. It is to this complicity to which I give the name of Loyalty. The fidelity He is disinterested, or rather, implies a selfless interest. What matters is not the character, nor the staging, but the construction of the deception, the construction of one Procedure. Yes fidelity It is disinterested, consequently, will be able to lead us to impassioned places. At the end of the road fidelity It is possible that there is a sense, a truth. This means that the truth is a posteriori, beforehand. The sixth axiom would be: Fidelity to a procedure is capable of generating a truth. It is important to clarify that the nature of this truth is only corroborative at the same time as the theatrical experience and nowhere else. I want to say that the truth in the theater is in the order of a current experience (intellectual / emotional). It can not be replaced by the truth of any other type of speech. There is no truth about the theater that can be taken without going to the theater. Any truth derived from theater that can be taken by those who do not go to theater is, in any case, a truth that corresponds to another discipline, to psychology, to literature, to sociology, to anthropology, to history , but not in the theater.

The Spectator / the Public

The public is the last element in the system of relationships that is one Procedure. But the public is also a construction. Their starting point is the spectators. Although we do the theater we know perfectly well that a group of spectators does not necessarily constitute an audience. The viewer knows very well what is his role in this system. Of all those who play the game, it is the one who is more secure and calm in its role. Worrying a viewer is a complex task that tests everything that has been said so far. To understand this is enough to ask nothing about the viewer, but rather be it. The viewer is random; It is, in short, the chance element par excellence of the theater. It is arbitrary and cruel; Do not let it catch you easily. What should we do with this? How to ensure the proper participation of a random element in the Procedure so that this is effective? The answer to this question is perhaps condemned to have too many versions, but in accordance with everything that has been developed so far, we can try one: in order to guarantee its proper participation in the Procedure To achieve its effectiveness, the viewer must ignore the secret key of it Procedure. The viewer must see the costume. It is in this way that it can be guaranteed that the viewer continues to be a spectator. And this may be the only task of the theater: ensuring that the viewer becomes nothing more than it is to be spectator Returning to each viewer this site more or less continuously is possible, perhaps, to turn this heterogeneous group of people into public, that is, in a homogeneous whole. The seventh axiom would be: The key to the procedure must remain hidden from the viewer so that it becomes public. *

* Leaving the key hidden does not in any way imply the establishment of cryptic narratives, but quite the opposite. In fact, and as an example, this is what Hitchcock did in all his films. And anything can be said about Hitchcock except that his stories are cryptic.

To conclude

In order to summarize, I will now list the axioms developed throughout this work:

• The theater as a game tends to oppose reality.
• In theater, the only possible compromise is with the rule.
• Any system of mathematical relationships that can be deduced from a material is a procedure.
• Every procedure is mathematical; that is to say that, like Mathematics, it is indifferent to the contents.
• The purpose of all the elements that make up the phenomenon of the theater is to return an effective procedure.
• Fidelity to a procedure is capable of generating a truth.
• The key to every procedure must remain hidden from the viewer so that it becomes public.

Final clarification

This work is presented as a development of the problem of theater commitment, moving it from the romantic setting to the contents to an intrinsic pole of the theatrical question, which is the game. Of course, no-one can abstain from the commitment to the contents that take place in theater. We all assume being beings sensitive to the facts of reality. But our commitment to these contents always finds us in the place of the spectators, that is, that place where we can (or not) become public. Commitment to the facts of reality is inevitable, it is given; and in any case you can not force it. Instead, the commitment to the rule, loyalty to the procedure, it is nothing that comes given, it is easily eludible and, therefore, forcing it necessary. It is, perhaps, the only ethical obligation of the task of the theater. *

* The writing of Game and commitment I, the truth, 13 was dated August 2001.

 II. The Responsibility

Introduction

Relevance and impertinence of the discussion about the responsibility of the theater. The discussion about the responsibility of theater seems to be a completely closed question. Its relevance was indisputable at one time and its impertinence, indisputable at another. Let’s see a little bit how the facts went. I mean “discussion” from a historical perspective (un moment, another) that travels the time that goes from the 70 years to nowadays. *

* I beg your pardon for schematicism and the undoubted errors that I commit in this historical appreciation. But this introduction is necessary without giving rise to precision.

In the face of the oppressive socio-political situation, such as that of the Argentine military dictatorship of the 70 and 80 years, the Argentine theater had to assume a social role and, above all, a political role. For this the intellectuality was already prepared. The militancy of the 60 years had solidified the ideas correct. During the dictatorial times and at the end of these, the theater (and other artistic disciplines) came to an undoubted responsibility. Responsibility I exercised. He enrolled in the imaginary as Responsibility of the Theater, which spoke of a strong commitment to reality. In Argentina we could cite three emblematic pieces that responded to this responsibility: The Field by Griselda Gambaro, Mr. Galíndez by Eduardo Pavlovsky i Visit by Ricardo Monti. These three pieces, written at the gates of the dictatorship (even before it was restored with reckless self-assertion) assume in different ways this responsibility. Later, and in full force of terror and censorship, they occur, among others, The Malasangre of Gambaro i Marathón of Monti. Pieces that use a metaphorical language that allows them to talk about what is happening on the one hand and, on the other, to mock the censorship. This epiphany and hidden simultaneous language is stressed as a value of universal language. As state terrorism threatens to perpetuate itself, the assumption of this responsibility on the part of the intellectuals and the artists seems to become the only possible way of poetic speech. The culminating moment of this situation occurs with the phenomenon of the Open Theater. A huge amount of pieces are written and mounted under this model. The theater had to talk about certain things. It was his obligation. And it was courageous and, in many cases, with enormous capacity. The 1983 fell into the Argentine military dictatorship. That is, the particular situation that marked, defined and defined a discourse procedure in theater (and in other artistic disciplines) disappeared. That moment coincided (and it is not Postal Code chance) with a deep crisis in dramaturgy. It is not that they did not continue producing pieces. The problem was another. Those who produced were the same as they had produced during the preceding period. There was a painful generational gap. The dictatorship, adding exile to death, had decimated a whole generation of intellectuals and artists. But this is not all. At the time of the return of democracy, the phenomenon of performance of the eighties (with the Parakultural at the head, to point out the iconic field of that manifestation). Groups such as Las Gambas al Ajillo and Los Melli, or artists such as Batato Barea, Urdapilleta, Tortonese, etc., generate a unique movement during this decade, a movement in which the author's place (as understood until then) is completely out of the ordinary. The undoubted relevance of the Responsibility issue during hard times was over. Here begins a deaf (and sometimes not so deaf) discussion. The old generation demands the validity of that Responsibility. He somehow demanded to continue remembering what had happened. The concept of Annual report. Need remember the horrors suffered by a whole society and the theater had to assume this Responsibility, inheriting from the previous. The discussion that this raised was at that delicate moment. The wounds caused by the dictatorship were still open. *

* After the advent and installation of democratic life, much of the pieces written during the dictatorship and Open Theater, as well as those written in the name of the Memory, became converted, except for honorable exceptions, in documentary material. Loss of validity gave them the value of a newspaper.

It was necessary to wait until the 90 so that a new generation of playwrights was encouraged to produce works irresponsible. The emergence of the Caraja-ji group, made up of eight authors, was the spokesman for this irresponsibility. As involuntary representatives of this new generation of creators, they dismissed the claim of the previous generation regarding the responsibility of the theater. In this group there was something of irreverence for free, of course. The discussion had little method, but it was alive. And the fight that took place was violent and was made public. The works of these new authors were titled as foreigners, of being indifferent to the problems of local society and, ultimately, of being frivolous. It was a discussion whose poles were the relevance or impertinence of the Responsibility of the Theater. Today, I think the terms of that discussion were poorly considered. It is not a question of opposing the Theater Responsibility to the Irresponsibility of the Theater, but of a change of axis. Insofar as the external situation (the conjuncture of social horror of a lamentable age) is modified, the theater regains its specificity, which is, hardly (and even less so) its own art, its own specific language But this not only implies the abandonment of the obligation to which they were subjected to a plethora of artists for two infamous decades, but implies the assumption of an old and, at the same time, a renewed problem: the Responsibility en the theatre. I emphasize: the issue is no longer divided between Responsibility and Irresponsibility of the Theater, but between Responsibility of the i in the Theater In other words, perhaps a bit more graphically: it was no longer a question about a Responsibility towards the outside (the social and political universe), but a Responsibility inward of the discipline itself. And this is the point at which this work aims to focus.

The abuse of the end of the Universe

To the list of calamities of which the dictatorial system was the architect, is added that of operating as a shutter of everything that had been cracking modernity for more than a hundred years. These are a series of systems of thought whose mutual connection is sometimes unobvious. These are: the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, the psychoanalysis of Freud's hand and then that of Lacan; the work of Karl Marx, and the set theory (the multiples of multiples) of the mathematician Georg Cantor.

The consequences of the revolution in the thought that these authors provoked are still not entirely clear and they bring the provisional and unfortunate name of postmodernity. Why lamentable In the name of the loss of univocity, that is, when the Universe has fallen in terms of the Uctor, the concept of multiplicity appears, in my opinion, heavily employed. True, there is not un sense, no longer there a Truth (we recognize this un It was no more than the remnant of the blind spot of modernity, the place of God, the last guarantor of Descartes).

The abuse of this lack ofun Sense has produced enormous misunderstandings and has left unconsciously what we said most: the establishment of Irresponsibility instead of Responsibility. That there is not un sense does not mean that there is not Postal Code sense. Cantor explains it clearly. No longer there The multiple, if. But there is multiple multiple. The danger of postmodernity is known to all: the Anychism. * But if there is no longer a sense to transmit, if in fact the idea of ​​transmission has expired, is it possible to deal with meaning?

If the sense is made beforehand we have the discourse manipulated, we know it. If I accept that the meaning can not be manipulated, it is the same as what it does, the meaning will become through the quality of multiple of the receiver. This thought, taken to the last consequences, is nothing more than a Nirvana.

* The question of Anychism It has a certain development in the third part of this work: Game and Commitment III, Freedom.

Responsibility inwards

Let's go back to the topic of Responsibility. We have said that it no longer involves an exercise out of the discipline in question, but an exercise inwards. In our case we speak (we have already said) of the Responsibility) en el Theater More than a year ago I wrote a work that was titled Commitment and Game, The Procedure. * There he developed certain ideas about the commitment to the rule of the game (understanding the theater as a regulated game), the dramatic-narrative procedures; and the truth. This work ended with the following statement: "Commitment to the facts of reality is inevitable, it is given; and in any case you can not force it. Instead, the commitment to the rule, loyalty to the procedure, it is nothing that comes given, it is easily eludible and, therefore, forcing it necessary. It is, perhaps, the only ethical obligation in the work of theater. " We could say that what he called there fidelity to the procedure struggle with the concept of Liability out. I continue to agree with this statement. But today I find that the concept of Procedure developed in that work has some gaps. We review two of the axioms of that work:

• Any system of mathematical relationships that can be deduced from a material is a procedure.
• Every procedure is mathematical; that is to say that, like Mathematics, it is indifferent to the contents.

* The title of this first text changed (as I have already pointed out) Commitment and Game, The Procedure, that of Commitment and game, Truth.

In other words, the indifference to the contents by Mathematics eliminates any speculation. This is something you want. I want to say that what arises from the monitoring of the rules of the created procedure partly escapes the will of content that could be tried to impose itself beforehand. This can lead to a surprising result, which shuns fantastically the will of the domain. That is to say that all voluntarism is eliminated. This implies a risk, it is welcome and I ratify it. But this pair of axioms imply on the other hand a danger. It is the danger of ingenuity. To the extent that I do not look out, how can I know if the procedure used is, for example, original? From here the questions are multiplied surprisingly: Procedures must be original so that they can be called procedures? Is a procedure reissued still a procedure? How can I differentiate them from each other? Can we talk about real-theater procedures in the case of new procedures and language-theater resources in the already-established procedures? Should a procedure be original to be authentic? Or is it just about being aware of the validity of this or its originality? Should a chimeric encyclopedia of procedures be developed? Obviously, there is no answer to these questions that is satisfactory. At this point is where you have to make a cut in the line of reasoning. I affirm, therefore, and arbitrarily, for now that: The question of the ownership of procedures is plated in terms of responsibility. *

Enfora and the Inside of the Responsibility Inside

We have already delimited the perimeter of the concept of Responsibility and we will not move. Within this perimeter of Responsibility None. In the next, we will make two differentiations:

• The Endorphan Head of Liability.
• The Head Inside of the Responsibility Inside. *

* From now on we will refer to the Responsibility of Enfora as Responsibility to Droughts.

At the same time, this Head of Responsibility Head Beyond, we will subdivide it functionally into two:

• The Responsibility with the New.
• The Responsibility with the Time (theater era, particular artistic conjuncture).

On the other hand, in the Head Inside of the Responsibility we will locate the Honesty (with the own work) to which also we will subdivide in two instances:

• The absence of speculation in the creative impulse.
• The awareness of their own limitations.

Responsibility for the Novelty

The novelty is something improbable, and this does not respond in spite of everything to many of the questions raised above. The novelty (the innovator of a procedure) can only be considered in terms of betting. That is to say that there are no guarantees that what we assume new is true. There is no possibility to anticipate the novelty. In fact, anticipate the novelty It's an impossible expression. In this case, the Responsibility is that the bet is made without guarantees. This may cause anxiety, but there is no remedy. Responsibility with the theatrical conjuncture: Each work, each creator, in addition to discussing with the recipients of his work (the public), talks with the different manifestations in force at the time of execution of his own work. In other words, the direction of the dialogue established by the artist with his work is double, with his receivers as public, on the one hand, and with his receivers as producers of other dialogues (colleagues), on the other. This last dialogue is evident in a horizontal reading, regardless of the discipline. Let's say, for example, the movie Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese. In addition to his specific truth as a work, this film is a replica of Francis Ford Coppola and his trilogy of "El padrí. His discussion with his colleague is thematic and aesthetic. Goodfellas It is the assumption of responsibility with the American cinematographic situation. Another clear example of the same is the case of the Dogma. Each of the films of this genre includes a procedure, a truth per se and, in addition, all of Dogma is proposed as a response to a particular conjuncture of cinema *. This dialogue with the pairs we will call it what i have to.

* In the film Signals (Signals) of Night Shyamalan a curious thing happens. I summarize the argument. A pastor, who has lost faith after the tragic death of his wife, lives alone with his two children in a house in the country. From there, they will see the signals, which are not other than those of an extraterrestrial invasion that clearly intends to eliminate the human race. When everything is lost, when it is clear that man will be erased from the earth's surface, the faith reappears faithfully.

We could say that the film makes the following statement: when there is nothing left of hope it becomes clear that the only thing that can exist is faith. Statement that looks a lot like that of Breaking the weaves by Lars Von Triers. But in the case of Signals (Signals) The formula is much more irritating because it is a Hollywood product, which produces an almost automatic de-authorizing effect on the premises.

The honesty

Finally we find the Head Inside of the Responsibility. It is about the exercise of Honesty. This is where we find the two elements listed above. On the one hand, the recreational and non-speculative momentum of the creative process (what i want), and on the other, the awareness and assumption of the particular limitations of talent (what can i do). We said that the Novelty was raised in terms of bet. In order for this to be the case, bet must guarantee the absence of guarantees. We also said that this is anguish, and it is, without a doubt. Now, is it possible to guarantee the absence of guarantees? Yes, but for this operation it is necessary to change the axis of the discussion again. Let us announce it without preamble: In order to guarantee the absence of guarantees that the bet (the only possibility of the coming of the Novel) becomes true, it is necessary to locate the work at the maximum point of tension between two instances: what I want, from one corner; and what can i what i have from the other.

formulated The film does not like anybody of artistic or intellectual means and to affirm the opposite is practically a gesture snobby. I know. But in the movie there is a question that seems to me fundamental. Days after seeing it, and still without being fully understood because I had so particularly interested, a discussion with some friends helped me clarify. Someone said that he understood the approach perfectly and that he was completely in agreement with the matter of faith, etc., etc. But what he questioned most strongly was the chosen context (which is supposed to be the commercial area of ​​the film). I naturally referred to the extraterrestrial invasion. Because he could not have put a world war or something like that? In fact, what would have made the movie more likely. Of course. Here was the key. Having chosen a more plausible context, the look would have turned to the historical context, to the real world and not to the world of cinema. This excess would have weakened the story and its central statement would have lost strength. As the chosen context moves away from reality (extraterrestrials tend to return to the film, which is nothing more than a family melodrama in a genre movie) the look is turned away; in this outside there is no world as we believed to know it and of which we have countless opinions; In this area there is only cinema, its language, its history, its particular situation. This is how the truth procedure created by "Signals" becomes the patrimony of "Signals": the human fact is only when the same human fact ends. This truth can not be established in any other way than through "Signals", as seen in theaters or on DVD. We may not like it or we care little about it. What's interesting, on the other hand, is what is below this discussion among friends that he cited above. We interpret that of change the context of aliens to another more likely. In order for the film to be good, so that I can adhere to it, I need to be closer to the world I live (myself, viewer), in order to facilitate an intellectual identification with the ideas of the movie Let's pay attention to the point intellectual identification with ideas. Here is a claim to documentary. In these postmodern times in which everything is confused I only believe in the contents insofar as these become documentaries (one-to-one correspondence with reality). Because I think that's where the issue of responsibility lies. Responsibility to the world and its sufferings. I identify intellectually with the ideas of the world where I live. And that’s why I want an art that reassures me. The contents of the documentary can be read around the world (supposedly, as we know that ultimately is not the case). The contents of fiction can only be read where it occurs, that is, in its representation (in cinema, in theater). And to us, ultimately doomed to be politically correct progressive thinkers, it is easier to identify with the victims of Somalia than to avoid the embarrassing experience of emotionally identifying with Mel Gibson. Shyamalan's gesture is violent. Decide not to talk aboutwhat's important. But just make a movie. That is, a game. And be consistent with the truth procedure that the game proposes and unfolds. I read this as an act of honesty / responsibility. Do not use the world so that he can evaluate his cinema. It proposes that its cinema be the world. In this limit, in this tension between the playful element that proposes the procedure and the responsibility of the gesture outwards and inwardly (outwardly, the film itself, inwardly, the rules of the game), freedom is played . Moving broadly between these limits converts the fact (narrative, theatrical, cinematographic) into an artistic fact.

Whoever writes and who reads

Let's see what has been said from the point of view of the same process of creation. In every creation process there is an instance of writing and another of reading. And I do not speak of writing in terms solely literary, but in a broad sense; plastic, scenic, literary writing, whatever. The movement between the instance you write and the one you read is constant. It goes from what you write to what you read non-stop. And these instances differ in functional way. In both cases different aspects of responsibility are played. He who writes responds impulses most unconscious times: there is an image, an intuition that guides everything, is playing what i want, I write what I write because yes. There is no speculation and this instance appears as the most fun. He who writes, then, could say that it is the kid. On the other side of this same process there is what you read. Here is another type of Responsibility involved. In the reading instance they play what can i do i what i have to. There is awareness of what he wrote the kid. But what he reads, the owner of this reading consciousness is the Mathematician. If these terms are reversed, the work of the artist is perverted. I mean, if the one who writes is the Mathematician, the writing will be dyed with speculation and then the sense will be manipulated. On the other hand, if what he read is the kid, falls into the sin of ingenuity and we can consider that a genius is a rude poem written in the midst of adolescence. Faced with this functional differentiation on the instances of writing and reading, we affirm: as well as there should be no speculation in writing, in the act of writing proper; yes there must be in the act of reading. It is the only way of not write content i know at the same time what am I writing. There must be tension between what you write and what you read. Now, what do I read? In principle I do not have to read what I wanted to write. I have to read what is written. Because it's about different things. Let's put an example. I write (because I dreamed it because I was told by a child, yes): "A woman stands up, steps up stairs, puts a test that was on the floor on a table. Hissa a flag It makes a dump. Then open the blinds. He puts himself in a stool that puts himself close to that window. It is thrown to the asphalt that there are eight floors down. " This is what I wrote: the cold description of a cold suicide. Now, what do I read? It depends. I can read several things. In trio one: I read a succession of ascents (gets up of the bed, bid the stairs, get up a ground test on the table, hissa a flag, gets up the hair, aids the blinds, go up on a stool) that culminate in a decline (the woman cause through the window). When I wrote it I did not write a series of ascents culminate in a decline. I wrote: A woman stands up, etc. But that's what I read. My reading orders the material, gives it a method and takes over the content beyond the argument. Writing is in this naive aspect. Reading is not. Writing is even childish (for that the kid). He is capricious Reading should not be. Reading has Mathematics as a tool (for this reason the Mathematician). Writing, on the other hand, has the raw material of the author's universe (his dreams, his images, his whims, in short).

The Responsibility of Irresponsibility

We could say that art is proposed to the world as a deception. In fact, those who execute it are called creators. That is, they make there something where there was nothing. This implies a deception. The act of deceiving is the artist's own. And it is in this sense in which the concept of Irresponsibility reappears. Can we say that the Irresponsibility of the artist is a duty? Yes, and although it sounds paradoxical, this duty implies a Responsibility. In short, the exercise of this Responsibility and as it has been delimited throughout this article is trying to guarantee this compulsory exercise of Irresponsibility, the only way to give the discipline in question its specificity once and another. It is indispensable, for now, to make a final clarification that has to do with the fact of carefully analyzing the concept of Deceit and to be able to differentiate clearly from what we could call the Scam. It is the Responsible Person of Irresponsibility which guarantees that Deceit is not a Scam. The creator tries that his work deceives the world. But Deceit only occurs to the extent that the same creator (jo) be included in this world. If I am not included, that is, if I can not be captive of the deception of my own work and I am out of the true procedure that my work proposes, it is no longer my work the one that deceives the world, but that It's me who is cheating on you In this last case we are talking about a scam play. The deceit is part of the magic element. The Scam is part of the disaster. The Scam, at the same time, would have four versions: one of defensive; the second, innocently neurotic; the third, seriously psychopathic, and the fourth, criminal. The first one has to do with the trap. The so-called defensive because it occurs in consciousness and under certain oppressive circumstances. * The second has to do with the artist who repeats itself. ** The third is deliberate manipulation (propaganda). The fourth is plagiarism.

* About this type of Scam it refers to Commitment and Game, the Procedure. This is the trap that Hamlet stops Claudi through the piece that makes the comics play to catch the consciousness of his father's killer. In this case the trap is stopped for a particular type of spectator and has an unambiguous purpose.** Libero Badii, a renowned Argentine plastic artist of Italian origin to whom I had the honor to meet and frequent (among other things because he was my uncle), in one of the visits he used to do and in which m 'It was allowed to see his works in process, he showed me two canvases each on his own easel. In one, a finished painting, on the side, a half-finished painting. The funny thing is that what was half done looked identical to the finish. "Do you see what's happening to me?" He said anxiously, "I'm so stagnant creatively that all I can do is copy myself." The gesture seemed inspired to me. By turning the scam into a procedure, the scam fades.

On repetition and plagiarism, I believe it is appropriate to refer to the story of Borges Pierre Menard, author of Don Quixote. I think that it is a great synthesis of a point of impossible solution between Swindle and Deceit *. I, Pierre Menard, copy the Quixot of Cervantes so that I also marvel at the captivating ambition of such company. That is, Menard is included in the world he pretends to deceive.

* On the other hand, this same story serves as an excellent example of the functional division between the writers and those who read. I quote a paragraph of the story of Borges Pierre Menard, author of Don Quixote:

"It is a revelation to confront Don Quijote de Menard with that of Cervantes. This, for example, wrote (Don Quixote, first part, chapter ninth):
... the truth, whose mother is history, time frame, deposit of actions, testimony of the past, example and warning of the present, warning of the future. Written in the seventeenth century by thewit lego Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes:
… The truth, whose mother is history, emulates time, deposit of actions, witness of the past, example and warning of the present, warning of the future. The story, mother of truth; the idea is amazing. Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry into reality but rather as its origin: The historical truth, for him, is not what happened, is what we judge what happened. The final clauses - example and warning of the present, warning of the future- They are brazenly pragmatic. It is also remarkable the contrast of styles. Menard's archaic style -foreigner after all- suffers from some affectation. Which does not happen with the one of the precursor, who uses the current Castilian unfolding of his time. "In summary, the Responsible for Irresponsibility exercise is able to guarantee the advent of the Novelty insofar as we can also be captive of the Deceit we have interpreted. Undoubtedly, this exercise has a lot to do with creative freedom (which is strictly the reason for another work), since freedom would be played at the highest point of the game (the Responsible Irresponsibility of the one who writes, the Impulse, the Child, the What I want); and the speculation (the Responsibility of the reader, the Mathematician, what I have and what I can) ** The writing of Game and Commitment II, the Responsibility, It was dated November of the 2002.

III. Freedom.

Break between repetition and anychism

Anguish

Why write a new work? The question seems idle. The answer is very complicated. In the first place, one should respond from the most dismal common sense; What else could he do, given that I am dedicated to the drama? The anguish before the blank page is a when it comes to the primera blank page When it comes to the second or third, and even more when it comes to the first page in blank number n, the thing is complicated to such an extent that it is preferable to avoid the answer and devote itself simply to writing. The problem is that sooner or later this question must be answered, because one way or another is the new work which inexorably becomes in response to this annoying question. If we refuse, the work will then be the renegation of this question. That is, the work will exclaim: I do not want to know anything about this question, I do not think I'm going to answer it! Of course, no one will be imprisoned for not answering it. Moreover, I venture to say that there is a tacit complicity to evade the issue incessantly. But the problem is of conscience, of responsibility, of a singular exercise of freedom. Conditional freedom, since there is no other, if we do not want to become eternal teenage girls. The claim that produces every creative attitude involves artistic responsibility. I talked about it, in a way maybe a little clumsy and curled up in another article that just had the name of Game and Commitment II, Responsibility (the article prior to this, was a pseudomatematic, somewhat irresponsible, if you wish). I somehow knew that the work on Responsibility was a bridge between the concept of Truth and that of Freedom, which is what I am interested in asking now. And when I speak of Freedom in theater (in art), clarify it well, I talk about freedom to generate a thought / theater (Badiou), exercise that, on the other hand (and worth the paradox), it is an obligation.

Truth and Thought

As is known, the rigorous achievement of a procedure produces truths. These truths align themselves with a logical system that delimits the territory of their own language. Well Now I would like to take a step further. I will formulate it in hypothetical terms: Is it possible that a set of truths generate a thought? In a first instance I say: not necessarily. That is to say, a thought is not a necessary consequence after the production of a set of truths. It would be rather the consequence of a purpose. I give it to you: purpose of exercise of freedom. There are not thought / theater outside the theater, that is, outside of his practice complete / to complete (to complete, in the sense that the theater is a living thing that is completed with the presence of the viewer in each of its representations). Thus, I affirm, on the one hand, that the exercise of this freedom (the one to generate a thought / theater) is an obligation, but that the generation of this one is not necessary. How is this understood? The production of thought is not spontaneous (spontaneous is all that is necessary) but forced (an obligation). When Picasso conquered Cubism as truth, this alone does not mean much, beyond the self-assertion of this truth: We can skip the laws of perspective and show the world as a plan (after all, what is painting but a two-dimensional world?). However, from today to the fact that nowadays when a child draws a person of profile and puts the two eyes on the same side, we say that it is very well, there is an abyss. This abyss is the vivid thinking of the plastic that has been incorporated after many years of maintaining a system of truth in a consistent way, something that is not achieved with the preparation of a pair of paintings. The path of conquest and donation of Picasso of the Freedom to paint two eyes on one side of the face He was, in a moment of his career, a battle in which he could not take a false step. He was obliged to support this possibility new. Freedom is not therefore an isolated act (in this case it would only be a whim), but the support of one / s truth / s. The land where truth is held is the artist's own work, his development. Every work is in the service of sustaining that first finding, and insofar as this work (in its entirety) sustains what was originally discovered, the work becomes a thought, and find it, in truth. In any case, the work is a set of objects and the finding, an isolated whim and, in the best case, casual. The conscious development of every work is an exercise of creative freedom. In other words, There is no freedom if it is not exercised consciously.  

Freedom

In general we believe to detect the effects of freedom when it is too late, when we stop benefiting from it. Freedom is therefore almost always subject to melancholy. Well, that is not freedom. There is talk of freedom without stopping and everywhere and it is not known very well what it is. Although it is deduced much more easily is not freedom. We all know very well when No. We work freely, we know the feeling, it is usually horrible and we systematically complain of this circumstance, whether it has been caused by external causes (most of the time) or by internal causes (internal conditioning conditions). The not freedom It has many and various reasons, from budgetary constraints to fatal orders of what must be, going through the censorship and other loads of this world. Now, when we can freely carry out our work, we are faced with an anxious panorama. Anguish of freedom of decision over the deceptive and reassuring freedom of choice. I speak of fallacy of the election since it is chosen between what there is. A decision, however, dispenses with what is and is capable of generating a new and even unknown field. From common sense it is assumed that exercising freedom is to do what we like. It may be true, but the formulation can not be more naive and, in the end, it does not clarify anything, because it means that freedom would be a natural state of living beings insofar as it is associated with the poeticocursi freedom of flying of the birds and the jump of the gazelles. Authentic nonsense. The birds fly and gaselles jump because they are the only one they know how to do. A boy makes a beautiful scribble on a piece of paper because he does not know he's a scribble; Like the native Africans, in whose paintings Picasso was inspired by their studies of color, they could not be aware that they were making an essential contribution to European painting of the early twentieth century. Doing what one likes is very difficult. To do what you want to do first you need to know what is what you want to do. And by despair of our evils, neurosis is always present and alert to disorient ourselves, and finally, we do not know if what we thought we wanted was not, in short, what my father wanted, or the teacher of primary school, my partner, my colleagues, the party in which I think I should have militated, the friends of the club, Ricardo Monti, Samuel Beckett, Che Guevara, or whoever he is.

The Desire

Synchronizing the work with its own desire is an almost titanic task. It is a work of conscience that, in addition, is tremendously solitary. Because what I want, what I like, is what no one else likes, what no one wants. And who can interest you who only interests me? By definition, to anyone. The paradox seems to have no solution. If my desire must be original, it will not be anyone else's desire. If it is not anyone else's, there will be no way that transcends beyond my personal and intimate surroundings, so that it falls into a kind of fruitless and sterile narcissism. After all, the artistic act is an act that is completed with others, with whom they are not the artist. If we want our work / thought to transcend, then we should not pay attention to the desire of the other? We should not try to synchronize our desire with those of others, the public, to name the 'other somehow? Should we not try to create empathy with other sensitive souls such as ours and give our thoughts or, even better, in an act of extreme generosity, to try to know the popular appetites and thus create a thought / work for all? Because, what donation can there be for the other / if the work only interests its author? Should we not, first of all, have to support ourselves in a common element in which the desire of the other is linked to ours? The answer is no. Because this binding element can not be one beforehand since it is just about the element to be created. And this act of creation is a donation for anyone who wants to take it. But donation of what? It is not donation of any content, but of a gesture, the gesture of the freedom of the creative act. I will say so forcefully: the only true donation is the donation of the exercise of the freedom to do what it deems to the artist; donation that is not for some, nor for all, but for anyone. Now, who is this anyone? I do not even have the slightest idea. I could not have it, but I would not talk about anyone. But there is no doubt that anyone is anybody of all. At first glance it may seem small, compared to our usual and insatiable appetites of transcendence, but the any It is much more specific and has less Fascist than the "some and it is clearly less voluntarist than the all And it is not a formal solution or commitment to the eternal problem of all / some; after all the any It is the best that defines each one of us in our ability to be captive of a newness / truth. We said: The only true donation is the donation of the exercise of freedom to do what he likes to the artist, etc. This act of donation is a mainly ethical and militant obligation. Failing to exercise his freedom is the only one that can be accused of an artist. On the other hand (let's get back to clarify it) what he likes the artist It is a product of a conquest unfolded throughout a whole work / thought and not the whim of one afternoon. It is not with a couple of ironic stories that Borges introduces in the literature the humor inherent in the literary act, but this donation from Borges, eternal and for anybody, is the product of a life dedicated to sustaining an unconscious truth in she herself, but who acquires value and transcendence to sustain this truth (turning him happily into slavery from his own freedom) to turning it into an unavoidable thought of universal literature.

A parenthesis: the Anycoism

Our field of work is partly contaminated. In summary, despite postmodernity, it is contaminated by Anychism. Everything can have the appearance of the latter (as opposed to the possibility of advent of the new one). And in that sense anything is accepted / acceptable. It has been discovered that nothing new can be discovered (in the modern sense of the term), beyond mixing what was already there. Incessant repetition of the same gestures. There is no slavery more pathetic than that derived from the premisses of postmodernity cheats (it is a feat of imagination to imagine a system that says that you can no longer imagine anything). The desire to design a dress differs slightly from the writing of a novel, except that writing a novel takes more time, if not Palermo would be infested with bookstores with bookshelves full of titles of new authors . Sold, it's good; Do not sell, do not waste time with this shit. It is believed that combining shapes and colors, which they call design, is synonymous with freedom. Do not be confused: although we can all like beautiful clothes, a jacket is nothing more than a jacket. I think that the theater in Buenos Aires has been expanding for a few years enormous vitality. The parameters of your own thought / theater have been refunded. I believe, therefore, that the discussion that occurs in our work context is fertile. Is there something between him? Anychism (postmodernity) and the abhorrent repetition of the consensus (conservatism). The circulation of this does not seem to have a defined horizon, it multiplies, it expands and, above all, it surprises. There are a considerable number of playwrights, directors, actors, some of them grouped, others not, who have won their will of freedom and unfold it, with the risk that this implies. The contents are diverse and do not matter too much, the results may be more appealing to each other, but the gesture is indefutable. And all this has done, luckily, that for some the question about the utility of the theater is, finally, disappearing.

To finish

Freedom is nothing that is because we use it. Freedom is an act of permanent creation, born with the advent of a truth and is sustained by the construction of a thought / work that starts with this truth. The political act that is intended to draw from art is pure talk if it is based on the assumption that the political element is linked to the contents of the work in question. If one has to observe a political attitude in the art, it will be detected in the exercise of freedom that the artist has deployed or unfolded, not only with his work (its contents) act of construction of this one. An author who writes a work about the French Revolution is not necessarily a revolutionary artist. What's more, if writing works about the revolution at a certain time and place is a fad, writing another would be almost the opposite to the exercise of freedom; It would be an exercise in the condescension and slavery of the artist regarding this fashion. On the other hand, the exercise of freedom has the fascinating quality of being invisible. I want to say that this exercise is not detectable within the known reference frameworks. To freedom do not know it reknows, but finds it; It dispenses with all the referents, renews them, mixes them, recycles them until they are unrecognizable. Before the exercise of freedom we will be astonished most of the time, outcasts, completely perplexed. In the first contact with the freedom, its effect is less the one of an intellectual movement that the one of a shock stimulus. And it is not a paralyzing shock, but, conversely, contagious. Fidelity to this contagion effect is an obligation.

Javier Daulte
Buenos Aires, August 2001 / December 2007 **
Translation into Catalan by Mireia Gubianas

* The writing of Game and Commitment III, the Freedom, was dated in December of the 2003.

** The review and the meeting of the three articles were made in July of the 2004